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Minutes of the annual meeting of the State Literary and Historical Association

Proceedings of the twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina

PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
Twenty-second Annual Session
OF THE
State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH
DECEMBER 7-8, 1922
Compiled by
R. B. HOUSE, Secretary
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RALEIGH
Bynum Printing Company
State Printers
1923
The North Carolina Historical Commission
T. M. PiTTMAN, Chairman, Henderson
M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill Heriot Clarkson, Charlotte
Frank Wood, Edenton W. N. Everett, Raleigh
D. H. Hill, Secretary, Raleigh
R. B, House, Archivist, Raleigh
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Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
1921-1922
President William K. Boyd, Durham.
First Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Mrs. D. H. Blair, Greensboro.
Third Vice-President John Jordan Douglass, Wadesboro.
Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh.
Executive Committee
(With above officers)
W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hill, Raleigh,
J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest.
1922-1923
President Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem.
First Vice-President Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest.
Third Vice-President Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh.
Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh.
Executive Committee
(With above officers)
R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest.
W. K. Boyd, Chapel Hill. Gen. J. S. Carr, Durham.
Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh, John J. Blair, Raleigh.
PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
ASSOCIATION
"The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera-ture
and history
;
"The encouragement of public and school libraries
;
"The establishment of an historical museum ;
"The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people
;
"The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina
;
and
"The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising genera-tions."
ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES
All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the
Association. The dues are one dollar a year, to be paid to the secretary.
RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
( Organized October, 1900
)
Fiscal Paid-up
Years Presidents Secretaries Membership
1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150
1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139
1902-1903 W. L. PoTEAT George S. Fraps 73
1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127
1904-1905 Robert W. Winston Clarence Poe 109
1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185
1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301
1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273
1908-1909 Junius Davis , Clarence Poe 311
1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440
1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425
1911-1912 R. D.W.Connor Clarence Poe 479
1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476
1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435
1914-1915 Clarence Poe R. D. W. Connor 412
1915-1916 Howard E. Rondthaler R. D. W. Connor 501
1916-1917 H.A.London R. D. W. Connor 521
1917-1918 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 453
1918-1919 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 377
1919-1920 J. G. deR. Hamilton R. D. W. Connor 493
1920-1921 D.H.Hill R. B. House 430
1921-1922 W.K.Boyd R. B. House 430
1922-1923 Adelaide lliiEs R. B. House 450
THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
Established 1905 ; discontinued 1922
The Conditions of Award Officially Set Forth by Mrs. Patterson
To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical
Association of North Carolina:
As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among
the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State
an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a loving
cup, upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with your ap-proval
and will be found to be just and practicable
:
1. The cup will be known as the "William Houston Patterson Memorial
Cup."
2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten
successive years, beginning with October, 1905,
3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the year
of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its
length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. The
work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manuscript
nor any unpublished writings will be considered.
4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup,
with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 1st
of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the
Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual
meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one
winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it three
times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so often,
the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names of
only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award shall
be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup.
5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and
Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of
the occupants of the chairs of English Literature at the University of North
Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State Col-lege
of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the chairs of History
at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College.
6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their
successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the board, and
these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter time,
as the board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to act
must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to serve,
so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each year.
7. The publication of a member of the board will be considered and passed
upon in the same manner as that of any other writer.
Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson.
SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION
According to a resolution adopted at the 19€8 session of tlie Literary and
Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have his
work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communicate
with any member of the committee, either personally or through a representa-tive.
Books or other publications to be considered, together with any com-munication
regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the Association
and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for consideration.
AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
1905
John Chaeles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as
"Songs, Merry and Sad."
1906
Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier."
1907
Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina."
1908
—
Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina."
1909
Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe."
1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett : An Essay in North Carolina
History."
1911
Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw : His Life and
Works."
1912—Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up."
1913
Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders."
1914—J. G. deR. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina."
1915
William Louis Poteat, for "The New Peace."
1916—No award.
1917
Mrs. Olive Tilford Dargan, for "The Cycle's Rim."
1918—No award.
1919—No award.
1920
Miss Winifred Kirkland, for "The New Death."
1921—No award.
1922
Josephus Daniels, for "Our Navy at War."
FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
Raleigh, N. C, March 16, 1923.
Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, Winston-Salem, N. C.
Dear Mrs. Patterson :—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the
Literary and Historical Association yesterday, it was decided to discontinue
tlie award of the Patterson Memorial Cup and to deposit the cup as a per-manent
memorial in the Hall of History. This decision was reached only
after it had been ascertained that such disposition was agreeable to you.
As you will remember, the original contest was to continue for ten years,
with the idea that if any one author should win the cup three times it would
become his property. Although Dr. Clarence Poe won the cup twice, the con-dition
of winning it three times was not met by any one author. The contest
was therefore continued indefinitely, at the discretion of the executive com-mittee.
The following situation has arisen : the space on the cup for engrav-ing
the names of the winners has been entirely filled, and since the cup has
met adequately the purpose for which it was established, it is deemed best to
establish the cup, as it is now engraved, as a permanent memorial in the Hall
of History.
The effectiveness of the cup as a stimulant to literary effort in North Caro-lina
will be clear to you from the record of its award.
In retiring the cup, the executive committee reserves the right to establish
again, as soon as practicable, some other form of literary reward, so that it
will gratify you to know that the idea established by you in the award of the
Patterson Cup is likely to be a permanent stimulant to literary effort in the
State.
It is hardly necessary to express to you the deep appreciation, not only of
the Literary and Historical Association itself, but of all the people of North
Carolina, for your sincere interest and cooperation in the purposes of the
State Literary and Historical Association.
With best wishes and highest regards,
Sincerely yours,
Adelaide Fries, President.
R. B. House, Secretary.
WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE;
SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT
1. Rural libraries.
2. ''North Carolina Day" in the schools.
3. The North Carolina Historical Commission.
4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall.
5. Fireproof State Library Building and Hall of Records.
6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record.
7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated.
8. Patterson Memorial Cup.
Contents
Page
Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session . 9
The American Revolution and Reform in the South, by W. K. Boyd 14
When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Caro-lina,
1890-1900, by John E. White 33
Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World,
by Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain 45
Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina Among the Southern
Indian Tribes, by Edmund Schwarze 53
Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative Departments,
by C. C. Pearson , 70
Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina, by L. R. Wilson 73
North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922, by Mary B. Palmer 87
The Cult of the Second Best, by Walter Lippmann 90
Members, 1921-1922 97
Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary
and Historical Association of North Carolina
Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session
Raleigh, December 7-8, 1922
Thursday Evening, December 7th
The twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Histori-cal
Association of JSTorth Carolina was called to order in the auditorium
of the Woman's Club of Raleigh, Thursday evening, December 7th, at
8 o'clock, with President W. K, Boyd in the chair. The session was
opened with invocation by Rev. Henry G. Lane, pastor of the Church
of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh. Dr. Boyd then read the annual ad-dress
of the president. He was followed by Dr. John E. White, Presi-dent
of Anderson College, who addressed the Association on "When the
Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina, 1890-
1900." After Dr. White's address there was a reception for the mem-bers
of the Association, the Folk Lore Society, and their guests, in the
Club Building.
Friday Morning, December 8th
The Friday morning session, December 8th, was called to order by
President Boyd at 11 o'clock a. m., in the House of Representatives.
The President presented to the Association Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, of
Raleigh, who read a paper entitled, "Two Wake County Editors Whose
Work Has Influenced the World." She was followed by Dr. Edmund
Schwarze, of Winston-Salem, who read a paper on "Missions of the
Moravians in l^orth Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes." The
President then presented Dr. C. C. Pearson, of Wake Forest College,
who read a paper on "Concerning a History of IN^orth Carolina Admin-istrative
Departments." He was followed by Dr. L. R. Wilson, of the
University of N'orth Carolina, whose subject v/as "Use of Books and
Libraries in l^orth Carolina." Miss Mary B. Palmer, who was to read
the bibliography of ISTprth Carolina for the year 1921-1922, was unable
to be present. She sent in her paper for publication, and Miss Carrie L.
Broughton, State Librarian, made an exhibit of books of the year.
L
10 Twenty-second Annual Session
At the conclusion of tlie exercises the following business was trans-acted
:
The president appointed the following
:
Committee on Nominations—W. C. Jackson, W. W. Pierson, Miss
Carrie L. Broughton.
Committee on Resolutions—D. H. Hill, Marshall DeL. Haywood,
Charles Lee Smith.
Committee on a North Carolina Poetry Society—C. A. Hibbard,
Miss I^ell B. Lewis, Roger McCutcheon, Gerald Johnson.
This last committee was appointed in response to the following
resolution
:
"Having canvassed the situation, and feeling that there is a definite interest
in the criticism and writing of verse, we respectfully petition the President of
the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to appoint a com-mittee
of organization with a view to promoting a poetry society for North
Carolina. ,,,^ ^ ^.
"N. I. White,
"Nell Battle Lewis,
"John Jordan Douglass,
"C. A. Hibbard, Chairman."
General Julian S. Carr obtained the floor on behalf of the Sir Walter
Raleigh Memorial Committee. In the course of his remarks he endorsed
in high terms the services of W. J. Peele in the work on the memorial
and as a founder of ISTorth Carolina State College, and the Literary and
Historical Association. He offered the following resolution, which was
carried
:
Resolved, That the movement inaugurated by the North Carolina Historical
Society in the year 1902 to erect a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh in
the city of Raleigh be properly reorganized and recognized by this Society.
Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton offered the following resolution, which
was carried
:
"We, the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution, wish to
express ourselves as solidly behind the movement to erect the Sir Walter
Raleigh monument, and will do everything possible to assist General Carr and
others interested in this movement.
(Signed) "Mary Hilliard Hinton,
Regent.
"Nina Holland Covington,
Recording Secretary."
>-
State Literary and Historical Association 11
This was followed by a tliird resolution made by Dr. J. Y. Joyner,
and carried, as follows
:
Moved, that General Carr be made Chairman of the Sir Walter Raleigh
Memorial Committee of twenty-five, and that the chairman, the incoming
president and the secretary of this association be authorized to select and
announce the other members of this committee.
The president, through the secretary, reported the following revised
constitution, which was carried unanimously
:
NAME
This association shall be called the State Literary and Historical Associa-tion
of North Carolina.
PURPOSES
The purposes of this association shall be the collection, preservation, pro-duction,
and dissemination of our State literature and history ; the encourage-ment
of public and school libraries ; the establishment of an historical
museum ; the inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; the correction
of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and the engender-ing
of a healthy State pride among the rising generations.
OFFICERS
The officers of the association shall be a president, first, second, and third
vice-presidents, and a secretary, whose terms of office shall be for one year
and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. They shall be elected
by the association at its annual meetings, except that vacancies in any office
may be filled by the executive committee until the meeting of the association
occurring next thereafter.
The president shall preside over all the meetings of the association, and
appoint all members of committees, except where it is otherwise provided,
and look after the general interest of the association. In case of the death or
resignation of the president, his successor shall be selected by the executive
committee from the vice-presidents.
The secretary shall be the administrative officer of the association. He
shall keep the books and funds, receive money for the association, and dis-burse
it for purposes authorized by the executive committee. He shall strive
by all practicable means to increase the membership and influence of the
association.
COMMITTEES
There shall be an executive committee, composed of the president, the sec-retary,
and six others, two of whom shall be appointed each year by the
incoming president, to serve three years : Provided, that at the annual ses-sion,
1922, four members shall be elected by the association, as follows : two
members to serve one year, and two to serve two years. The president, sec-retary,
and any other three members shall constitute a quorum for the trans-action
of business.
12 Twenty-second Annual Session
The executive committee shall make programs and arrangements for all
meetings of the association, supervise all business matters, receive all reports
of officers, endeavor especially to secure from philanthropic citizens donations
toward a permanent fund of endowment, and in general promote the purpose
of the association. The executive committee shall be subject to the general
supervision of the association.
There shall be such other committees appointed by the president to serve
during his term of office for such time and such purposes as he shall see fit.
MEMBERSHIP
All persons interested in its purposes and desiring to have a part in pro-moting
them are eligible to membership in the association. They will be duly
enrolled upon receipt of the annual membership fee.
FEES
The annual membership fee shall be one dollar, to be paid to the secretary.
MEETINGS
There shall be one regular annual meeting, the time and place of which
shall be determined by the executive committee. Other meetings may be
arranged by the executive committee.
AUXILIARY SOCIETIES
Auxiliary societies may be organized, with the advice of, and under the
supervision of, the executive committee.
Fkiday Afternoon, December 8th
In the rooms of the iSTorth Carolina Historical Commission, Chair-man
W. C. Jackson called to order a conference of I*^orth Carolina his-tory
teachers. Discussion was led by Mr. Charles L. Coon and Mr. Guy
B. Phillips, and participated in by numerous teachers of history. The
conference was held Friday afternoon, December 8th.
Friday Evening, December 8th
On Friday evening, December 8th, President Boyd called the meeting
to order in the auditorium of Meredith College. He presented Prof.
Louis Graves, of the University of ISTorth Carolina, who presented the
speaker of the evening, Mr. Walter Lippmann, of the 'New York World.
Mr. Lippmann read a paper on "The Cult of the Second Best," after
which there was brief discussion by question and answer between Mr.
Lippmann and his audience. At the conclusion of the address Dr. T. P.
Harrison, of the State College, in a brief and graceful speech rendered
the report of the Patterson Cup Committee, awarding the cup for 1922
to Hon. Josephus Daniels, for his book, "Our l^avy at War."
State Literary and Historical Association 13
The Committee on Resolutions reported the following resolution,
which was carried
:
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North
Carolina commends the establishment of county libraries, and urges county
authorities to consider this plan as the most feasible to promote county-wide
library service. D. H. Hill, Chairman.
The Committee on ^dominations reported as follows :
Officers: President—Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem; 1st Vice-
President—Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh; 2d Vice-President
—
Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest; 3d Vice-President—Mrs. J. R.
Chamberlain, Raleigh; Secretary—R. B. House, Raleigh.
Members of the Executive Committee: R. D. W. Connor, Chapel
Hill; W. K. Boyd, Durham; Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh; C. C.
Pearson, Wake Forest.
The Association adjourned sine die.
ADDRESSES
The American Revolution and Reform in the South
By Wm.. K. Boyd
President State Literary and Historical Association
The past decade lias witnessed a profound change in the public
opinion and policies of the United States. In 1914 we had placed new
wine in old bottles and under the domination of a party noted for its
conservatism we were experimenting with governmental supervision of
business and finance, adopting a new program of taxation, and con-sidering
certain measures leading to social democracy; then toward the
end of the World War we championed a policy of international co-operation.
Today we have reached a point of extreme reaction. Alarmed
at the forces unloosed by the cataclysm in Europe we have conceived
a nebulous state of normalcy; for national self-preservation we have
retired behind the cloak of isolation, political and economic. Alarmed
at the prevalence of new political and social ideals, free speech is
limited, free teaching is restricted, personal liberty to travel to and
fro is denied, and the alien is restrained from seeking in America a
refuge from old world conditions. Moreover, in reaction against any-thing
new we have fallen back in national administration into the old
trough dedicated to the sacred theory of the separation of the powers.
Today we stand as the most conservative rather than the most progres-sive
and forward-looking of the great nations of the world.
The present confusion in opinion, the uncertainty in the national
state of mind, should be stimulating to those who are historically
minded. This is not the first period in our national life when existing
institutions and the social structure have been questioned ; by no means
the first time when some have turned blindly to the ancient landmarks
and others have sought an anchorage in new principles. While history
never repeats and comparisons are always dangerous, there are certain
phenomena of parallel interest with the present turmoil and uncer-tainty;
and today the conservative and the radical could do no better
than to recall and examine from the angle of institutional reform and
social change that decade which saw the birth of the Republic. For
the American Revolution was not merely a revolt against the mother
country resulting in independence; it also unloosed forces in America
that few foresaw at the beginning of the struggle, and these forces
State Literaky and Historical Association 15
produced changes at home as profound and lasting as did the entry of
a new member into the family of nations. And nowhere were those
changes more apparent than in the Southern States. It was by virtue
of the leadership taken in the reform of social and institutional life
that the South was enabled to assert its great influence in shaping the
affairs of the nation during the generation after the war; for states-manship
is never bred in a static atmosphere; for it the spirit of
dynamic change is essential; and nowhere in America was that spirit
stronger in the later eighteenth century than in the South.
I take therefore as the theme of my address the spirit of the Ameri-can
Revolution and its reaction on the institutional and social struc-ture
of the South, the conflict between conservatism and radicalism
during that epoch-making period in this our home region. To that
end, let us first consider the background which precipitated the issues.
From the early days down to 1776 certain fundamental influences
shaped Southern society. First of these was that of family. In no
other region of English America did kinship, locality, and descent have
quite the importance that prevailed south of the Potomac. For this
there were various reasons. One was economic. In the pioneer days
land was granted by headrights. Once the land was surveyed and
entered, wife and children were also of value in clearing the forest,
cultivating the soil, and in administering the property. Social de-mands
also made the family of distinct value. There were few amuse-ments,
and the distance from settlement to settlement was great. There-fore
if relaxation or a change from immediate surroundings was de-sired,
family and kindred were the only opportunity. Blood rela-tionship
meant companionship, sympathy, and that relaxation which
later ages have found in golf clubs and pleasure resorts.
To the same end worked a tradition brought from the old world. IN^o
worthier ambition occurred to an Englishman than to found a family
which would preserve its identity from generation to generation. In
the South encouragement in that purpose existed in the land law. Gen-erally
the property of persons dying intestate passed to the oldest son,
and this custom of the law stimulated testators to give preference to
one heir over others. Moreover, it was possible through entails to
insure inheritance in one line of descent. So the unity of family prop-erty
was established, and on the basis of that unity there developed
an aristocracy of land and family. Thus economic conditions, the need
for companionship, tradition and the law gave to the family a peculiar
position; indeed in the South the family had something of the sanctity
enjoyed by the church in New England. It was in the home, not the
church, that the great epochs of human life were usually celebrated;
16 Twenty-second Annual Session
there occurred the christenings and marriages, there in garden or
neighboring field was the burial ground, and often the only churches
of the community were the private chapels of the great landowners.
The family was the inner shrine of southern life.
Second only to the family in importance was the system of local
government. Indeed the two were intimately connected. In England
a part of the family ideal was for one or more members to take an
active part in public affairs. This tradition followed the colonists to
the new world, and in the South the opportunity was at hand in the
county court, the prevailing unit of local government. Though vary-ing
as to detail from colony to colony, the county court everywhere had
this in common : its members, the justices of the peace, were appointed,
not elected. The other officers of the county were also appointed, either
by the court or by the Governor. The powers of these justices were
not merely judicial; they were also governmental and administrative.
To be a county justice was a position of no mean importance, and it is
no wonder that well-established families centered their attention first
of all on membership in the county court. Generation after generation
members of the same family were to be found on the local bench. The
office was a stepping-stone to other positions; to the Legislature, the
governor's council, and the office of sheriff. Thus there developed a
ruling class whose members were bound to each other by ties of public
service. Its support was indispensable to any one desiring to enter
public life.
Like England, also, was the law. Each colony inherited the common
law and the statutes enacted by Parliament before its foundation. Local
conditions made possible many modifications of this principle. In IsTew
England, especially, there were many variations, but in the South there
was a larger fidelity to English heritage. The law of inheritance and
wills, equity and the land law, procedure and the division of the courts
into courts of law and courts of equity—^these matters illustrate the
fidelity to British jurisprudence. How strong was the example of con-temporary
England is well illustrated by the application of benefit of
clergy. This custom of the law, by which severe penalties for crime
were ameliorated, was adopted in Virginia. In 1732, in language
almost identical with that of the statute of 5 Anne 6, the Virginia
Legislature declared
:
If any person be convicted of felony, for which he ought to have the benefit
of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be
required to read, but, without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and
reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict.
State Literary and Historical Association 17
Thus branding and corporal punishment became a substitute for
hanging by the neck until dead in offenses that were clergiable. This
adaptation of English practice was not confined to Virginia; it was
found also in the Carolinas and Georgia, and was not abolished until
long after the Revolution.
An important element in the colonial life of the South was religion.
The warm climate, the close contact of the people with the forces of
nature, and the comparative loneliness due to sparse settlements begot
a peculiar emotional temperament. This was a good background for
religious thought and feeling; for solitude leads to introspection, nature
suggests an unseen presence, and warmth of climate creates a suscepti-bility
to emotional appeal. Unfortunately the history of religion was
characterized by a contest between privilege and equality. In Vir-ginia,
the Carolinas, and Georgia, the Church of England was estab-lished
and the law of the time discriminated in its favor. The
persecution of Puritans and the exclusion of Quakers in Virginia
during the seventeenth century, and the question of the extension
of the Toleration Act to Dissenters in the eighteenth century, are
familiar themes in the colony's history. More than this, the law of
Virginia declared that any one brought up in the Christian faith who
denied the being of God or the Trinity, that the Christian religion is
true, or that the scriptures are of divine authority should lose his
capacity to hold office on first conviction, on a second his right to sue,
receive gifts and legacies, or to serve as guardian or executor, and he
was also to suffer three years' imprisonment. In l^orth Carolina the
clergymen not of the established Church were subject to militia and
road service, and in South Carolina the parish organization was made
a unit of civil government whereby the low country controlled the alien
settlements of the frontier. In spite of these discriminations the Dis-senters
increased in numbers until they were in the majority and the
contest between England and the colonies which ushered in the Revolu-tion
was paralleled by a controversy no less notable between the Angli-cans
and Dissenters for toleration and equality before the law.
Education and intellectual life also bore the stamp of old world tra-ditions.
The English ideal that education is the function of the family
and the individual except in the case of indigent children prevailed.
Hence it was that the only provision for public education in colonial
law was exactly that which also existed in England, the training of
indigent children and orphans through apprenticeship. Suggestive of
England also was the foundation of privately supported or endowed
free schools to which poor children were usually admitted free. A
18 Twenty-second Annual Session
number of these free schools were to be found in Virginia and South
Carolina, and in the latter colony such schools were supported by clubs
or societies. The nature of the curriculum in these institutions is
unknown, but an advertisement for a master to teach a free school in
Princess Anne County in 1784 required of the candidate ability to
teach the Latin and Greek languages and surveying. It is not diffi-cult
to see in these schools an effort to duplicate in America the work
of the endowed grammar schools in England. A few academies identi-fied
with the Church of England existed. There were also academies
established by the Presbyterian clergy of the Carolinas in the genera-tion
preceding the Revolution; but their growth and expansion was
limited by the policy of the British Government which would not
permit them to be chartered. Indeed, toward the support of schools
by public money the British Government was strongly averse; money
emitted for that purpose by the I^orth Carolina Assembly in 1754 and
spent for the colonial cause in the French and Indian War was not
refunded.
Yet there was a high type of intellectual life among the large planters.
In South Carolina the dominant interest was science and medicine. In
Virginia it was law and philosophy, and politics. Robert Carter read
philosophy with his wife; Jefferson also dabbled in the subject; the
opinions of the Virginia jurists show a wide knowledge of the English
common law; and surely no profounder student of politics lived than
Madison. "In spite of the Virginian's love for dissipation," wrote Lian-court,
"the taste for reading is commoner there, among men of the first
class than in any other part of America." However, intellectual life
did not find expression in the production of books, rather it found an
outlet through the spoken word. Politics and litigation were something
more than a personal stake; they were a game to be played for the
game's sake, methods of intellectual discipline. There was thus injected
into public affairs a sort of splendid disinterestedness. It was this
phase of southern character that William Ellery Channing had in mind
when he wrote from Richmond in 1799
:
I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yan-kee
with the genuine confidence of a Virginian. . . . There is one single
trait that attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues of
New England : they love money less than we do ; they are more disinterested
;
their patriotism is not tied to their pursestrings.
Social conditions were characterized by privilege based not on blood,
but on wealth. I^^owhere in America were there greater inequalities,
and of these inequalities Virginia was most notable. Wrote Isaac Weld
:
State Literary and Historical Association 19
Instead of the land being equally divided, numerous estates are held by a
few individuals, who derive large incomes from them, whilst the generality of
the people are in a state of mediocrity. Most of the men, also, who possess
these large estates, having secured a liberal education, which the others have
not, the distinction between them is still more observable. (Travels, I, 146.)
These words aptly describe the larger planter class—a class so numer-ous
in South Carolina, less extensive in ISTorth Carolina, and barely
existent in Georgia. But there was also a large middle class, small
planters and farmers, professional men, mechanics and yoemen. They
composed at least half of the population in Virginia and more than half
in ISTorth Carolina. Many of them accumulated property or attained
intellectual distinction, and thereby rose into the ranks of the aris-tocracy.
One can almost identify this class by the descriptions of their
houses, as when a traveler mentions houses built of wood, with wooden
chimneys coated with clay, whose owners "being in general ignorant of
the comfort of reading and writing, they want nothing in their whole
house but a bed, dining-room, and a drawing-room for company."
Finally there were the poor whites—rude, shiftless, and unambitious.
"It is in this country that I saw poor persons for the first time after
I passed the sea," wrote Chastellux, "the presence of wretched, miser-able
huts inhabited by whites whose wan looks and ragged garments
indicated the direst poverty." However, the proportion of this class to
the total population was less "than in any other country of the uni-verse."
]^ot poverty per se, but the contrast between poverty and
riches impressed the observer. Between Richmond and Fredericksburg
one might meet a "family party traveling along in as elegant a coach
as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended
by several gayly dressed footmen." He might also meet a "ragged
black boy or girl driving a lean cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull
or two, riding or driving as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon,
if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the
team and its driver."
Regarding class distinctions and class feeling we have little informa-tion
from the natives themselves, especially from members of the
humbler class. Preeminent among such accounts is the testimony of
Devereux Jarrett, a Methodist minister
:
We were accustomed to look upon what were called gentle folks as beings
of a superior order. For my part, I was quite shy of them and kept off at a
humble distance. A periwig in those days was a distinguishing badge of
gentle folks, and when I saw a man riding the road, near our house, with a
wig on, it would so alarm my fears and give me such a disagreeable feeling
that I dare say I would run off as for my life. Such ideas of the difference
between gentle and simple were, I believe, universal among my rank. {Life,
p. 14.)
20 Twenty-second Annual Session
That slavery tended to intensify class distinctions is an axiom to
wliich Jefferson bore ample testimony. But to tlie serious inquirer tlie
more notable characteristic of Southern slavery in the later eighteenth
century was its unprofitableness and a widespread desire to see it abol-ished.
Weld wrote:
The number of slaves increased most rapidly, so that there is scarcely any
State but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by every
planter, as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture of the
estate is attended with great expense. (Travels, I, 147.)
In 1774 the wife of Robert Carter agreed with Philip Fithian, the
family tutor, that if all the slaves were sold on the plantation, and the
money put at interest, there would be a "greater yearly income than
what is now received from their working the lands," to say nothing of
the risk and trouble assumed by the master as to crops and negroes.
And this opinion was confirmed in greater detail by St. George Tucker
in 1804:
It would be a very high estimate should one suppose the generality of
farmers to make ten per cent per annum upon the whole value of their lands
and slaves. I incline to believe that very few exceed eight per cent, and out
of this the clothing and provisions of their slaves and horses employed in
making the crop ought to be deducted. A net profit of five per cent is proba-bly
more than remains to one in twenty for the support of himself and his
family. If he wants money to increase his stock, even the legal demands and
speculators' pay, without scruple will amount to fourfold, perhaps tenfold, his
profits. (Comnientaries on Blackstone.)
In South Carolina also there was a similar sentiment. LaRochefou-cauld-
Liancourt, writing in 1799, made a careful estimate of the eco-nomic
profits of slave labor in that State and concluded that it was $68
per head and that white labor would bring a larger return.
,
This condition was one basis of a widespread desire to see slavery
abolished. Finch wrote:
Before I visited the Southern States, I supposed that all the planters were
in favor of the system of slavery. But I did not meet with a single indi-vidual
who did not regret having this species of property, and shew a wish to
remedy it, if there was any possible mode by which it could be accomplished.
(Travels, 240.)
Said E-ussel Goodrich before the Alexandria Society for Promoting
Useful Knowledge, in 1791
:
But let our planters become farmers—it would be a memorable idea ; our
fields, touched with a magic wand, would bloom ; our slaves become freemen
;
our improvement excite universal attention.
State Litekaey and Historical Association 21
Such were the institutions and economic conditions peculiar to the
South in the eighteenth century. It was a land of many contrasts.
Political oligarchies ruled, yet there was a certain disinterested devo-tion
to the public service, and the section's greatest contribution to
national life was in the domain of political thought. Refinement and
culture of a high type existed, but along with it much ignorance and
coarseness. Love of liberty was challenged by the existence of chattel
slavery. The bounty of nature was rebuked by wasteful production.
Souls susceptible to religious appeal were steeped in material aims and
deistic philosophy. What traits of character distinguished the South-erner
from his neighbor northward? What kind of men and women
did such conditions produce? The answer is suggested by a remark
of Bernard in his Retrospects. Speaking of the Virginia planters he
says, "Like the old feudal barons, their whole life is a temptation
through absence of restraint." Life in a vast, bountiful and unde-veloped
region, life in intimate contact with the blind forces of nature,
life without the limitations of a small unit of local government, life
without adequate means of intellectual discipline or adequate religious
institutions, life with hosts of dependent servile blacks; under such
conditions character was molded with no restraint from without; men
and women developed according to the dictates of emotion and will.
Thus the Southerner was notable for his individuality, for his non-conformity
to type or pattern. This individuality, resulting from ab-sence
of restraint, in turn produced certain traits well outlined by
Thomas Jefferson when contrasting N'orthern and Southern character:
N. S.
cool fiery
sober voluptuous
laborious indolent
persevering unsteady
independent independent
jealous of their own liberties zealous for liberty, but trampling
and just to those of others. on that of others.
Upon such a region and such a people the American Revolution had
a profound reaction. Its justification was found in the compact theory
of government popularized by the Declaration of Independence. That
all men are created equal meant, in the light of the revenue controversy,
equality of economic liberties. That all governments derive their
authority from the consent of the governed meant in the relation of
colonies to the mother country, self-governing but component parts of
a British Empire. These were concepts which only radicals and obscure
J
I
22 Twenty-second Annual Session
men then grasped ; wlien they were rejected by the authorities in power
independence was the only alternative. But when the choice of inde-pendence
was made, what were the implications of that equality and
that government by consent to the citizens of the states in revolt? Spe-cifically,
what were their implications in a section with a well-established
landed aristocracy, ruled by petty judicial oligarchies, more English
than American in its system of law, without educational opportunities
for all, where the concept of liberty was challenged by chattel slavery
and religion was characterized by the privilege of one denomination?
It is worthy of note that the man who more than any other realized
the contrast between the political theory of the Revolution and the
institutions and conditions peculiar to the South was Thomas Jeffer-son.
Within three months after the Declaration was adopted he re-signed
from the Continental Congress, returned to Virginia, and be-came
a member of the Legislature with the distinct purpose of agitating
democratic reform. He says:
When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our wliole code
must be revised, adapted to our republican form of government, and now that
we had no negations or councils, governors and kings to restrain us from
doing right, that it should be corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to
reason, and the good of those for whose government it was formed. {Memoir.)
In one direction the course of reform was already under way, that
of religious freedom. In June the Virginia Convention had adopted
a constitution, and in the Bill of Rights there was a declaration that
"all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according
to the dictates of conscience." This meant the abolition of religious
discrimination, that persecutions were no longer possible, and that men
of all religious persuasions could participate in government if they
met the proper secular tests. It was far in advance of ]N"orth Caro-lina's,
for there the right to hold office was denied to those who rejected
the being of Grod, the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine
authority of the Old and ISTew Testaments. In Georgia, likewise, the
constitution of 1777 declared for freedom of religion but required
all members of the Legislature to be of the Protestant religion,
and not until 1790 was the principle of religious freedom
fully triumphant in South Carolina. Thus Virginia led the
South; moreover it led the nation, for in no other of the first state
constitutions was the principle of unrestricted religious freedom enun-ciated
; only Rhode Island, which continued its colonial charter, reached
a similar plane. More than this, the Virginia declaration was the first
of the kind to be embodied in a modern constitution anywhere.
State Literary and Historical Association 23
However a question of equal importance was not settled, the relation-ship
between the State and the established church. Many of the Dis-senters
held that the Virginia declaration destroyed that relationship;
the Anglicans that it did not. Thus when the Legislature assembled
in October there were many petitions; some, mainly from Presbyterians
and Baptists, prayed for a final separation of church and state; others,
submitted by Anglicans and members of the Methodist societies, asked
for a continuation of the establishment. Of the committee to which
these were referred Jefferson was a member. His sympathies were
entirely for disestablishment, but against him were Edmund Pen-dleton,
the jurist, and Robert Carter Nicholas, patriot. For two months
there was a deadlock. Then as a compromise the English statutes
which made criminal religious opinions were declared invalid, the Dis-senters
were exempted from the payment of church taxes, and all others
were likewise exempted for one year. This was practically, but not
theoretically, disestablishment. Coercion over opinion had previously
gone, and taxes now relinquished were never reimposed.
It is somewhat difficult for us today to realize the significance of
these changes in organic law. The men who promoted them were of
English extraction, and for a thousand years there had been in the
mother country an established church, the acknowledgment in law and
institutions of national allegiance to God. For a group of provincials,
English in origin and tradition, ruthlessly and suddenly to sever the
historic relationship between religion and government marked them as
radicals. States embarking on such a policy were entering an uncharted
sea and there were grave predictions as to the future. In fact in Vir-ginia
many believed that standards of conduct were lowered and the
morals of the people corrupted by this break Avith the past. Typical
was Richard Henry Lee. He wrote:
Refiners may weave reason into as fine a fabric as tliey please, but the
experience of all times shows religion to be the guardian of morals ; and he
must be a very inattentive observer in our country who does not see that
avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obliga-tion
to contribute something to its support. (Lee, Lee, II, 5.)
l^aturally the traditionalists gathered strength and in 1784 they sub-mitted
to the Legislature two measures, one to incorporate such religious
societies as would apply for incorporation, the other that the people
ought to pay "a moderate tax or contribution annually for the support
of the Christian religion." Both these resolutions were adopted and the
Episcopal Church, applying for incorporation, was promptly chartered.
However the second resolution, calling for taxation, required a statute;
24 Twenty-second Annual Session
through the influence of Madison the bill was deferred until the next
session in order to sound the sentiment of the people. There followed
a notable campaign, and when the Legislature next met it was evident
that Virginians had spoken against any renewal of church taxes. Taking
advantage of the situation, a bill for religious freedom written by Jeffer-son
was introduced and was adopted. It established nothing new; but
it did state in form of statute the ideal of complete religious liberty;
while toleration widely existed no State hitherto had enacted that prin-ciple
into statute law. This distinction again belongs to Virginia. The
incorporation of the Episcopal Church was repealed, and this was fol-lowed
by the policy of confiscating its property, a process not completed
until 1802.
In one other Southern state the religious problem proved serious.
That was South Carolina. There disestablishment was a political issue
bound up with the reform of representation. The constitution of 1777
made a compromise. The privilege of the Anglican Church was re-moved
by admitting other churches to incorporation, but the ideal of a
relationship between religion and government was preserved, for it
declared that the Christian Protestant religion should be the religion of
the State and every member of the House of Representatives should be
of that faith. This was not in harmony with the democratic spirit of
the time and in 1790 the religious qualification was abolished and the
free exercise of religion was guaranteed.
What was the significance of this controversy over religious liberty
and disestablishment ? It was something more than a contest for private
judgment; it Avas a part of the democratic movement of the time, in-spired
by the doctrine of the equality of man and the consent of the
governed. It was also a phase of the contest for power between the
tidewater and the piedmont regions. The results of the movement were
vastly important. It reacted on the general state of culture. In 'New
England intellectual life tended toward the spiritual; it was dominated
by theology; in the South it was materialistic, leaning toward law,
philosophy, and deism. I!^ow the triumph of religious liberty and dis-establishment
at first strengthened the forces of materialism and deism,
and the cause of religion, whether ritualistic or evangelical, was re-tarded.
Said Isaac Weld
:
Throughout the lower part of Virginia—that is, between the mountains and
the sea—the people have scarcely any sense of religion, and in the country
the churches are falling into decay. As I rode along, I scarcely observed one
that was not in a ruinous condition, with the windows broken, doors dropping
off the hinges, and lying open to the pigs and cattle wandering about the
weeds.
State Litebaky and Historical Association 25
^N'o greater revolution occurred in the life of the Southern people than
that in the early years of the nineteenth century when, through a series
of revivals, the mind of the masses was swung from the popular skepti-cism
of the day to the fervid acceptance of the orthodox teachings of the
evangelical churches.
Finally the religious controversy had an influence on political his-tory.
Jefferson espoused the cause of the religious liberty. He was
widely denounced for this policy and his record was cited against him
in the presidential campaigns of 1796 and 1800. Madison's share in
the movement was also capitalized by his opponents. But both men
had won the admiration and loyalty of thousands of Dissenters, who
were for the most part small farmers and men of small means. It was
therefore easy to organize them into opposition to an economic policy
hostile to their interests, the policy best represented by the Hamiltonian
financial measures. Indeed as a tribute to Jefferson a new church or-ganized
in 1792 was named for his party, the Republican Methodist
Church.
The problem of religion was by no means the only reaction of the
political philosophy of the Revolution on Southern society. Besides
an established church there existed an aristocracy of wealth and politi-cal
power. How far could it be justified during a war waged in
behalf of equality of economic liberties and government by consent?
Again the principal stage of the controversy was Virginia. There the
basis of the aristocracy was the land law. Towards entails the policy
of the colony was more conservative than England, for while entails
might be docked by judicial proceeding in the mother country, in the
colony an act of the legislature was essential unless the property was less
than £200 in value. Primogeniture was strictly enforced and inheritance
always descended. Because of entails and primogeniture there arose in
tidewater Virginia "a distinct set of families" who formed a kind of
patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their
establishments. From this order the King habitually selected his Coun-cillors
of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to
the interests and will of the Crown. Indeed society tended to stratifica-tion.
At the apex were the great landowners, protected by the laws of
inheritance. Below them were the half breeds, younger sons who
inherited the pride but not the wealth of their parents; next the pre-tenders,
men who had acquired wealth and property by their own
efforts and were anxious to rise into the aristocratic class. Finally were
the yeomen or great mass of small farmers, caring little for social dis-tinction,
on whom depended the real progress of Virginia.
26 Twenty-second Annual Session
More distinctly than in the question of religion the leadership in land
reform was assumed hj Jefferson. In October 1776, while the dis-cussion
of the church question was under way, he introduced a bill "to
enable tenants in taille to convey land in fee simple." After strenuous
opposition it was adopted. At one stroke the privileged position of en-tailed
property was overthrown, for, said the law, all that "hath or
hereafter may have" an estate in fee taille should stand in possession
of the same "in full and absolute fee simple." That so radical a measure
should have been so readily adopted is remarkable ; it is ample evidence
that the Revolution was more than a revolt against England. Jefferson's
aim in changing the land law was to "make an opening for the aris-tocracy
of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for and
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions."
But the abolition of entails Avas only the beginning of legal reform;
there remained primogeniture, the criminal law, and the whole British
heritage. These matters were referred to a committee of five. It made
a report in 1779 ; only a few of its recommendations were then adopted,
but in 1784 through the influence of Madison the report was published,
and the second bulwark of landed aristocracy, primogeniture, was
abolished. In its place was adopted a statute of descents. The eighteen
clauses of this law are unsurpassed in all America as a species of revolt
against British heritage. The rule of inheritance of the common law
required the property of one dying intestate always to descend, never to
ascend. A father could not inherit from a son, nor a grandfather from
a grandson. Also the male issue was always preferred before the female
;
if there were no male heir the female heirs inherited equally. On the
failure of lineal descendants the only collateral relations who could
inherit were those "of the blood of the first purchaser" ; that is, a kins-man,
say a cousin of ten or twenty removes, would be preferred to a
half brother. J^ow this whole structure of inheritance which had been
built up in England and had been transplanted to Virginia, Avas swept
away and intestate estates were directed to pass in equal shares to the
children and their descendants; if there were none, to the father; if
there was no father living, then to the mother, brothers, sisters, and
their descendants; and if these were failing, the estate should be
divided into two parts, one to go to the maternal kindred and the other
to the paternal kindred.
This law removed the last privilege of the landed aristocracy. Its
author was Jefferson. In the committee on revision Pendleton opposed
it and wished to preserve the tradition of primogeniture by adopting
the Hebrew principle of giving "a double portion to the elder son."
Says Jefferson
:
State Literary and Historical Association 27
I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double the
work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion ; but
being on a par in his power and wants with his brothers and sisters, he
should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the
decision of the other members.
Virginia was not alone in the reform of tlie land law. In South
Carolina entails had been abolished in 1732 and in 1790 the rule of
primogeniture was likewise set aside. Georgia in the constitution of
1777 prohibited primogeniture and required an equal division of prop-erty
among the heirs. IN'ot until 1784 was the reform accomplished in
JNTorth Carolina, but the change was not so drastic as elsewhere, for male
heirs were given preference over females; subsequent laws of 1795 and
1808 placed the matter on a practical parity with Virginia law.
That the course of land legislation influenced southern society pro-foundly
was the conviction of native observers and foreign travellers.
Not merely were existing entails destroyed, not merely was primogeni-ture
abolished, but custom supported the principle. "The cases are rare,
very rare," says Tucker, "in which a parent makes by his will a much
more unequal division of property among his children than the law
itself would make." Thus came a fairer distribution of wealth.
There is no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates,
who, in a luxurious and ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of
the community ; a much larger number of those who are wealthy have ac-quired
their estates by their own talents or enterprise ; and most of these
last are commonly content with reaching the average of that more moderate
standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the higher
scale which it tolerates. Thus there were formerly many in Virginia who
drove a coach and six, and now such an equipage is never seen. There were
probably twice or three times as many four-horse carriages before the Revo-lution
as there are at present, but the number of two-horse carriages may be
now ten or even twenty times as great as at the former period. A few fami-lies,
too, could boast of more plate than can now be met wuth ; but the whole
quantity in the country has increased twenty if not fifty fold. {Life of Jeffer-son,
p. 93.)
A similar result is attributed to the abolition of primogeniture in
South Carolina. Murray wrote
:
The planters are generally impoverished by the division of property ; they
have lost many of their patrician notions (call them, if you will, prejudices).
The increased commerce has raised to affluence, and consequently into fashion-able
society, many merchants with whom the planters would not associate on
terms of intimacy fifty years ago ; thus, while the society of Boston, Philadel-phia,
and New York is daily becoming more aristocratic, that of the Carolina
capital is becoming more republican. (Travels, II, 188.)
28 Twenty-second Annual Session
Undoubtedly the Revolution wrought a change in the institution of
private property and thereby altered the social structure. But the
doctrine of the equality of man went further ; it questioned the existing
attitude of the law toward crime and the criminal and ushered in the
modern humanitarian spirit. To the conservative mind of the eighteenth
century severe penalties were essential ; the protection of property was a
supreme aim of government and the reform of the criminal was ignored.
To the reformer, inspired by the doctrine of equality, penalties must
be examined in the light of reason and the life and character of the
criminal deserved consideration. Again the conflict between the forces
of conservatism and reform centered in Virginia. There twenty-seven
offenses incurred the penalty of death and among non-capital punish-ments
were the lash, the stocks, slitting of ears, and branding. Again
also the pioneer in the movement for reform was Thomas Jeiferson. He
was the author of a bill proportioning crimes and punishments, the
pioneer of the modern humanitarian spirit. Says the statute
:
And whereas the reformation of offenders, though an object worthy the
attention of the laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which
exterminate instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource
against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their
fellow-citizens, which also weakens the State by cutting off so many, who, if
reformed, might be restored sound members to society, who, even under a
course of correction, might be rendered useful in various labors for the public,
and would be, living, an example and long-continued spectacle to deter others
from committing the like offenses. And forasmuch as the experience of all
ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their
own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecu-tions,
to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias ; and by producing in
many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon
and benefit of clergy ; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the
injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the
laws observed ; and the power of dispensation, so dangerous and mischievous,
which produces crimes by holding up a hope of impunity, might totally be
abolished, so that men, while contemplating to perpetrate a crime, would see
their punishment ensuing as necessity, as effects their causes, etc.
For such reasons the revisors proposed to reduce the twenty-seven
capital crimes to two, treason and murder, and one-half of the property
of those convicted should be forfeited to the next of kin of the one
killed; corporal punishment and imprisonment were to be the penalties
for most other offenses; however, for a few crimes, such as disfiguring
another, "by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off
a nose, lip, or ear, branding, otherwise shall be maimed" the principle
of the lex talionis was to be adopted. This latter feature of the bill
did not meet the approval of Jefferson. He wrote:
State Litebaey and Historical Association 29
The Lex Talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, to the sim-plicity
of which we have generally found it so difficult to return, will be
revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and
a hand for a hand, and a tooth for a tooth, will exhibit spectacles in execu-tion
whose moral effect would be questionable ; and even the memhrum pro
memhro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although
long authorized by our law, for the same offense in a slave, has, you know,
been not long since repealed in conformity with public sentiment. This needs
reconsideration.
The proposed reform met bitter opposition. Minds that could not
resist the cause of religious freedom, the separation of church and
state, and the reform of the land law, would not yield to the heresy
that penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the causes for
execution be reduced to two. And so in 1785 Jefferson's bill was re-jected.
However, the revision of the criminal law was bound up with
another issue : that of the survival of British statutes. The Convention
of 1776 had declared the statutes prior to James I binding on Virginia.
The abolition of this ordinance now became the objective of the re-formers.
It was accomplished in 1789 when the legislature repealed the
ordinance. A new^ commission was then appointed to revise the law and
at length in 1792 a code was reported and adopted in which all English
statutes were declared to have no force in Virginia. With the law
thus purged of British heritage, the humanitarian spirit had freer play
and in 1796, the same session in which the first public school law was
adopted and a plan for gradual emancipation of slavery considered, a
bill was introduced to amend the penal laws by reducing the death
penalties to two, and imposing on non-capital offenses service in a
penitentiary where the character of the criminal might be reformed. A
new champion of the cause now appeared, George Keith Taylor. In a
notable speech he assembled all the arguments of the time in favor of
humanitarianism. The existing penalties, he declared, were in violation
of natural rights, for in the state of nature each man defends himself,
but when he repels the mischief the "law commands him to pardon the
offender." Life can be taken only in case of murder. "Against all other
offenses I can either obtain effectual security at first, or effectual recom-pense
afterwards. But against the murderer I can obtain neither.
. . . JSTecessity therefore compels me to put him to death."
This law of nature becomes the fundamental law of states because,
under the social compact from which governments have their origin, no
power to impose the death penalty except for murder is granted. It is
30 Twenty-second Annual, Session
also wasteful, for society loses units of production and no recompense
is made to the person injured. Benefit of clergy as means of ameliorat-ing
the law simply makes the offender a marked man.
Every one avoids him, no one chooses to give employment to a felon ; but he
must live, and, consequently, deprived of all means of honest subsistence, is
compelled to continue his former course of iniquity.
ISTor are harsh penalties in conformity to the philosophy of law. In
a warm climate people are indolent and hate work; compulsory labor,
therefore, is a better deterrent to crime than the threat of death. Severe
laws do not improve manners; therefore adopt penalties that appeal to
the sense of shame. Put into the criminal code something of the spirit
of forgiveness and kindness of Christianity. Finally, let laws harmonize
with the needs of population and let them not needlessly diminish the
number of laborers in a land where labor is scarce.
Such were typical arguments of Taylor; they reflect as wide a read-ing
in the social and political philosophy of the time as do writings of
Jefferson or Madison. As a result the bill was not tabled but was
adopted. The capital crimes were reduced to two, benefit of clergy was
abolished, except for slaves, and the penitentiary was substituted for
other offenses that had been capital.
Closely akin to the nascent sense of humanitarianism was the new
spirit in education. As soon as the British administration collapsed,
a new ideal of the obligation of the government toward intellectual
training appeared; instead of a responsibility confined to the orphans
and the poor, came a general obligation. Thus the State constitutions
of J^^orth Carolina and Georgia clearly proclaimed the principle of
State support of schools and universities. Moreover, education should
be reformed and adapted to American needs rather than to European
heritage. Thus during the war the Virginians reorganized the con-servative
College of William and Mary into a university and there were
established a school of modern languages, a professorship of law, the
first in the United States, and one of medicine, the second in the coun-try.
Georgia in 1783 adopted a comprehensive scheme for public high
schools, one for each county, and in 1785 a plan for a State University
which would include all the institutions of education in the State, and
stimulate the cause of literature, was adopted. It was too advanced for
actual conditions and so it remained for JSTorth Carolina to make the
first practical educational achievement of the new era, the opening of
the University in 1795. There is no greater tragedy in all southern
history, with the exception of the survival of slavery, than the failure of
the revolutionary philosophy in the realm of education. The traditions
State Literaey and Historical Association 31
of the past, the aversion to taxation, and the impractical, even aris-tocratic,
character of the ideal which looked for political leadership
rather than elevation of the masses, fixed its doom. A similar fate
awaited the anti-slavery sentiment; to the doctrine of the equality of
man, human bondage was intolerable, but no practical method of
emancipation which would evade a race problem was ever formulated.
From the facts and tendencies thus outlined it is evident that the
American Revolution wrought a profound reaction on the institutions
and social structure of the South of colonial days. The results were
religious freedom, a greater equality of property rights, reform of the
criminal laws, efforts at public education and the emancipation of slaves.
'No wiser definition of history was ever made than the statement that
it is philosophy teaching by example. What then, in the broader mean-ing
of these terms, should the example of the Revolution contribute to
our knowledge of the philosophy of politics and the nature of free
society ?
First of all, no great war can occur without making some modification
or radical change in the internal life of the belligerent nations. Indeed
I believe that war is often but one manifestation of a spirit of change
or revolution working in civil as well as martial fields. At times
reaction checks or opposes this spirit of change but in the end reaction
gives way and readjustment takes place. Shakespeare grasped this
idea in Julius Caesar; he put into the mouth of Brutus just before
the battle of Phillippi the memorable words
:
There is a tide in tlie affairs of men tliat leads onward.
It is the task of the thoughtful and earnest citizen to know this tide,
to work with it, to guide and direct it, never to seek to impede it. Such
is statesmanship. The great failure of Brutus was not the loss of a
battle but his failure to realize that the foundations of the Republic
were already gone and that the irresistible tide of the age was toward
imperialism. No fine trait of personal character, no patriotic devotion
to the past can obscure this fundamental fault—that the man had not
the brains to understand forces greater than his own convictions.
In the period of the Revolution Jefferson and Madison caught the
meaning of the revolt against Great Britain and swung with the tide.
This is the basis of their statesmanship. Those who opposed them,
though estimable in personal character, have today a minor place on
the page of history.
Another reflection which must come if any comparison be drawn be-tween
the problems of the Revolution and those of today, is the futility
32 Twenty-second Annual Session
of applying to one age tlie political and social philosophy of the past.
The apostles of progressivism reject the social compact theory as a
basis for their program. They see in the natural right of the individ-ual
to life, liberty, and happiness, laissez faire individualism. In con-trast
how often do we hear conservatives say, "Give us the democracy of
Jeiferson." But viewed in the light of conditions as they existed in
the eighteenth century the Jeffersonian ideal could be attained only by
the abolition of special privilege, whether it was the privilege of church
or landowner, by a new treatment of the criminal and of the enemies
of, society, and a new sense of state control over intellectual discipline.
This in that day and time was radicalism. Apply seriously the principle
of the equality of man and the consent of the governed, even the right
to life, liberty, and happiness, to modern conditions and what will be the
fate of tax exemption and certain financial problems, the present atti-tude
of courts toward labor, and even the curriculum of our schools
and colleges? If any have doubts let them read Jefferson's remarks or,
better still, those of his friend John Taylor, on such matters as the
nature of industry, the character of government bond issues, the nature
of banking, and the best working type of democracy.
In conclusion I wish to raise this pertinent question: how much of
the past really lives today, how much of it do we really inherit? The
answer, I believe, is, of the forms very much, of the spirit very little.
Let me illustrate. The statutes of descents adopted in the period of the
Revolution still live; but the condition against which they were aimed,
an unequal distribution of wealth, again exists, and in the light of this
fact the statutes are ineffective formulse. The humanitarian sentiment
of the Revolution today has many monuments in the shape of penal
institutions; but how often is the spirit and purpose, the reformation
of the offender, submerged by the monuments? Again, religious freedom
undoubtedly has survived. But the principle on which that freedom is
based, the liberty of the human spirit and its right to opinion, is seri-ously
challenged. Words and sentiments expressed freely by Jefferson
and Lincoln, when today uttered, too often bring prosecution and im-prisonment.
The old conception of the fathers, that thought and
speech must be free, no longer exists. We live in an age of restraint,
not of absence of restraint.
'Now, since the forms rather than the spirit of the past survive, is
not he who really achieves something, whether he calls it conservatism
or not, breaking new ground, and is he not therefore potentially a
radical ?
When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in
North Carolina
1890-1900
By John E. White
President Anderson College
Of course I am greatly pleased to be here as the guest of the N^orth
Carolina Literary and Historical Association, but if I should attempt
to tell you why I am so pleased it would involve me at once with an old
problem which has worried me enough already—the problem of the
sensitive psychosis of the ISTorth Carolinian living away from home. It
is difficult to explain that man satisfactorily. Some months ago I
sought out the old Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem and was there
trying to locate without immediate success the grave of John Henry
Boner. An elderly gentleman walking by observed my search and
guided me to the spot. "Are you interested in his poetry?'' he asked.
"Yes—no ; I am more interested in the man. He is the man who broke
his heart trying to interpret the sorrow and justify the conscience of a
ISTorth Carolinian forced to live somewhere else." Standing there with
this kind old gentleman, a minister of the Moravian church, I repeated
the lines which North Carolinians know and love so well.
Why is it the "Tarheel" exile reacts within himself so keenly and
yet so unsatisfactorily to his own conscience? He has all the inward-ness
of an interminable identity with l^orth Carolina; cherishes the
sense of it as a good fortune ; avows the pride of it everywhere ardently
;
and yet feels that he is somehow guilty of a dreadful inconsistency.
Have you not noticed that he is the most over-conscious J^^orth Caro-linian
in the world ? I suppose it is because he has spoiled his right to
be. He tries to make up to his conscience by protests of devotion. He
revels in the zeal of the repentant renegade. I have often heard him
at it on his visits home, fervently insisting that
"Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred,"
he is going to die sometime far, far away,
" 'Mid pleasures and palaces,"
and that if anybody should inquire about the lonely corpse, just tell
them it's
"A Tar Heel dead."
Sometimes I have fancied that the elder brothers hear this prodigal's
proposition impatiently and doubtfully, distrusting so much "Tar Heel"
virtue that has to make apologies and excuses for itself. The elder
34 Twenty-second Annual Session
brothers never do understand and never can understand. It is only the
prodigal who knows. And what he knows is this : that though he may
die condemned he never was really guilty. In his Reminiscences, Alex-ander
H. Stephens refers to a conversation with Reagan, of Texas, his
fellow prisoner at Fort Warren after Lee's surrender, about their asso-ciation
and associates in Congress before the Civil War. He recalled a
certain congressman named Felix O'Connell, and asked Reagan if he
remembered him. '^Yes, he was a very profane man and nearly always
drunk." "That is true," said Stephens, "but he was the most religious
man in Congress and about the only one who made it a point to attend
the chaplain's prayer reverently. One day after his morning devotions
in the House he took a seat beside me and said, ^Mr. Stephens, you are a
Christian, aren't you? I have something to say to you, something that
gnaws at my heart. My wife is a beautiful Christian, a saint on earth,
and when she dies she will go right straight to heaven.' Then with
broken voice he said, ^Mr. Stephens, I am afraid it will be the last I
will see of her and that when I die I will go right straight to hell. But
what I want to say to you is that if the good Lord does send me to hell
He will lose one of the best friends He ever had in this world.' "
]^ow, I might have been invited somewhere else by some other literary
and historical society, without wondering why; but sent for to come
here under such dignified auspices, it is very different. I have heard
of an Irishman who on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he
would have a drink of good old apple brandy, made no reply at first,
but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. "What are
you looking at, Mike?" inquired his friend. "Bedad, sir," said Mike, "I
thought an angel spoke to me." Somewhat so did I feel at first, Mr.
President, when I received the invitation to be your guest this evening.
The second reflection on the invitation was more sobering. I began to
question whether I was prepared to accept its scrutiny. Down in Atlanta
we had a Deacon who was reported to his fellow Deacons as inclined to
indulge over-much on occasions. A committee was appointed to visit
him. They did so in due and solemn form. "Brother Henry," said the
spokesman, "do you ever drink?" He looked at the committee, who
were his companions and personal friends, and said, "Brethren, before I
answer, may I ask you if this is an invitation or an investigation?"
Your invitation to me, I assure you, was not accepted without hesitation.
It was the suggestion of your secretary that gave me at length enough
confidence to venture. He indicated that I might deal profitably with
ISTorth Carolina events from 1890 to 1900. I had been in a position to
observe and somewhat to participate in the agitations of that period in
State Literary and Historical Association 35
this State with reference to education. There were incidents and in-fluences
of historical fact and value in those times, of which no fair
record had heen made. Could I not, after the chastening of twenty years'
absence from the State, set them in dispassionate order with emphasis
only upon their bearing on the greater matters which followed after?
So I am here to speak to you on "When the Tide Began to Turn for
Popular Education in l^orth Carolina.''
I have referred to the disadvantages of the exile. There are some
compensations. Distance does lend enchantment, and detachment does
minister to judgment. I can, for instance, report on the impression
I^orth Carolina is now making for herself in the South and in the
nation with more appreciation than if I were a part of it. You who
are doing the work are conscious of disappointments and dissatisfactions
with the State's achievements which do not trouble me. What is it that
people in every section of this country are saying about ISTorth Carolina ?
They are saying to one another in critical comparisons, that J^orth
Carolina is the premier commonwealth of the South in progressive
movements and that she is measuring pace with any State in the
Union. Her achievements within twenty years have struck across the
imagination of the whole country as remarkable and almost revolu-tionary.
She has moved from the seventh place to the twenty-seventh
in the value of manufactured products. She is a file leader of the
nation in contribution of Federal taxes in support of the government.
In the textile industry she contributes more to the demand markets and
in the promotion of income to the cotton farmers of the South than any
other State. She produces fifty per cent of all the lumber manufactured
in the United States. She has first rank in minerals. So the reports
run all along the line, of good roads and material improvements. But
these things are not what attract the most astonished attention abroad.
It is what the State has done in public education that makes greatest
amazement. This is the achievement of fundamental relations to all
other progress.
The Astounding Contrast
The educational expert coming from elsewhere to survey the widely-reported
progress in North Carolina would observe two facts of con-clusive
import about what he finds in actual operation.
First: That the State has committed itself unreservedly to the ac-ceptance
and demonstration of the democratic theory of education.
What is it? It is the theory in repugnance of the aristocratic theory
in education. It proposes education by the State in logical construction
;
that is, big and broad foundations first, with superstructures in their
36 Twenty-second Annual Session
practical order. To be explicit, tlie common schools first, secondary
schools second, collegiate and technical institutions third, and without a
blind alley anywhere.
Second: That popular education in i^orth Carolina is really popular.
It is enthroned in the imagination and conscience of the people. Its
enterprise rests securely in the affections of the citizen heart.
ISTow what is the historical bearing of these two facts of attainment in
1922 on the situation of education in ISTorth Carolina from 1890 to
1900? Simply this—Within less than a quarter of a century, JSTorth
Carolina has shifted her whole front in popular education. It is a
complete reversal of disposition and habit for a whole people. As a
social phenomenon it is most remarkable.
In 1890, the undemocratic theory of education prevailed in the
practical attitude of J^orth Carolina educational leaders. That leader-ship
was absorbed mainly with higher education and with the emphasis
of it. It was in general their conception that education would percolate
in intelligence through trained leadership down to the people. At any
rate, in the lack of demand from the masses justifying taxation and
legislative appropriations to the common schools they found encourag-ment
for the aristocratic policy of trying to build from the top down-ward.
The historian will explain this without difficulty. It will be
remembered that Virginia had long been reckoned as the State of edu-cational
eminence in the South. Her theory was the aristocratic theory.
The University of Virginia indicated the ideal of Southern statecraft in
education. Thomas Jefferson led the way. His monument was seen and
revered in the University at Charlottesville. ISTo one took the pains to
notice that theoretically his original program of education provided
for a structure based upon an adequate system of common schools. It
was only evident that he had consumed his practical passion on the
University. The University of ISTorth Carolina followed the Virginia
model. The effect of it through the years fixed the status of the common
schools as of subordinate importance. The University at Chapel Hill,
chartered in 1789, existed in glory and wide prestige for fifty years
before there was any movement to establish a public elementary school
in ISJ'orth Carolina. The law of 1839 providing for the first elementary
public school was timorous, tentative and without great purpose to
overcome the backwardness of public opinion. From 1839 to 1860,
there appeared one man only with a passion for popular education.
Calvin H. Wiley did his heroic stint of pleading with enough discourage-ment
to break his heart. It drove him at last back to the quiet of a
Presbyterian pastorate. The public school system from his day on.
State Literaky and Historical Association 37
existed and carried on meagerly under depression and with, no influential
diampionship. It was not popular with the educators, nor with the
people. Its maintenance was openly questioned in college centers. In
1880 the students at the University debated the question: "Ought the
Public School System of IsTorth Carolina to be Abolished?" Interest-ing
enough, as his biographer indicates, this debate was promoted by
Charles B. Aycock, of Wayne County, then on the eve of graduation.
In 1889, the anniversary celebration at Wake Forest College provided
a similar debate on the question : ''Resolved, That the present Public
School System in ISTorth Carolina is worthy of support.'^ When the
vote was taken by the large audience, the negative won overwhelmingly.
Again, curious enough, your speaker this evening represented the
negative and was warmly congratulated that lie had shown conclusively
that the public school system was not worthy of support. If the repre-sentatives
of the public school system were asked why something was not
done to improve and extend the system and make the common schools
more worthy of respect, they had their answer. The Supreme Court of
the State up to 1900 bad held that free schools were not "a necessary
purpose" and therefore were confined within the constitutional limita-tions
of taxes. That doctrine was laid down in Paysour vs. Commis-sioners
from. Gaston County, Judge Merriman dissenting. This meant
that for the common schools only a bone was left to pick after the
66 2-3 cents limit for State and county purposes of administration had
been reached. What was left could only be applied to common schools.
It was true, of course, that the constitution of the State carried the
mandatory clause—"a four months' public school shall be maintained in
every district." But the Supreme Court was not greatly impressed by
that and did not regard the common schools as constituting "a neces-sary
purpose." Thus the State of N^orth Carolina stood in 1890. I^o
one seemed greatly troubled by it. Secondary education by the State
was of course impossible, except in a few cities. In the incorporated
towns under municipal taxation there were only eight graded schools
with high school instruction, and only two of them attempted as much
as the tenth grade. In the country districts the elementary public
schools, lately defined by the Public School Commission of North Caro-lina
as "the basic institution of democracy," averaged sixty days a year
in disreputable and despised one-room houses. Only half of the children
of school age pretended to attend them at all. The little dole of money
available in a district was the perquisite of inefficiency and often im-patiently
absorbed as an inconvenience by private schools to get the
public school out of the way.
38 Twenty-second Annual Session
When the Tide Began to Tuen
Take your stand there in 1890 and tell me wliat outlook is there for
popular education in J^orth Carolina? Is there anything on the hori-zon
of hope to justify the faint prophesy of what would actually occur
in twenty years? Apparently nothing. The tide is set stubbornly in
difficulty, indifference and prejudice. I^orth Carolina was on the eve
of a transformation with noboby expecting it. Within five years a cur-rent
will be stirred in an unexpected quarter—an agitation will sud-denly
spring up which will become positive and powerful in appeal
for the common schools. That agitation, controversial, factional, and
seemingly reactionary at outset, will challenge public interest in the
common schools and will begin to turn the thoughts of public men and
the feelings of the people fiom apathy to a fighting resolution. How-ever
men may differ in their estimate of the worthiness or the unworthi-ness
of the initial impulse of the propaganda of the Baptists and Meth-odists
of those days, there are two features of it no one will dispute.
It was impressive in volume, characterized by great earnestness, and
commanded public response. The other feature was this : The agitation
after 1895 concentered immediately in demands for adequate practical
attention to the common schools. This is the story I have come to tell
you.
In 1893 a change of administration at the University of ISTorth Caro-lina
brought to that institution an assertive and aggressive leadership.
This leadership went out after students and increased appropriations.
Expressions emanated therefrom concerning the denominational colleges
which were sharply resented. The old but suppressed antagonism be-tween
the State college and the denominational college flamed out. The
county scholarship system, increasing appropriations from the legisla-ture,
and the alleged use of the State's money in loans to individual stu-dents
created a situation of acute resentment. The first gun of the
battle was fired by Dr. Charles E. Taylor, of Wake Forest College, in a
pamphlet on "How Far Should a State Undertake to Educate?" In
calm argumentative style this widely distributed pamphlet confirmed
the State's right and duty to furnish primary education free to all, but
dis|)uted the State's function of free higher education. The response
of protest was first heard in resolutions passed by the Roanoke Union
of the Tar Biver Association in the summer of 1893. The Baptist iVsso-ciations
followed in the same line of discussion. The controversy gained
headway, and at the Baptist State Convention in Elizabeth City, Decem-ber,
1893, a resolution by Dr. J. D. Huffham was adopted which pro-vided
for a committee of five to seek concert of action by all the denomi-
State Literary and Historical Association 39
national colleges, to memorialize the legislature, and to "secure if pos-sible
such arrangements as will enable the schools founded and con-trolled
by citizens to do their work without unnecessary competition
with the State schools." In 1894 the agitation was pressed further to
the front by Dr. C. Durham, the field marshal of the Baptists. At
the associations of that year and on through the next year to the day
of his death in October, 1895, Dr. Durham concentrated all the passion
and ability of his great personality in speeches which drew and held
multitudes everywhere to sympathetic attention. The emphasis of his
campaign turned more and more from the invidious note of protest
against the University to the generous and patriotic appeal to JSTorth
Carolinians to do their duty by the children of the State. Concurrently,
in 1895, the first newspaper 'in the State to place the deplorable condi-tions
of popular education before the public was the Biblical Recorder,
then edited by Mr. J. W. Bailey. He opened up a consistent, reason-able,
and increasing propaganda, showing week after week, in detail
of facts and figures and arguments, what the low estate of the public
school system portended for IsTorth Carolina civilization. In 1896 Dr.
Durham's successor and Dr. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College joined
with the editor of the Recorder with all their might, and the definite
campaign for the common schools began to have a program with its
objective in direct action for their relief. Already the new Superin-tendent
of Education, Mr. Charles H. Mebane, elected by the Populist
upheaval, had placed himself in cooperative relations with the Baptist
and Methodist movement. The political conditions at that time favored
the consolidation of influences for the change of State policies in edu-cation.
The Populist influence woke up the Democratic masses to the
sense of their powers of self-assertion. When that movement was over
in 1898, the channels of popular sensation had been permanently
widened and deepened in JSTorth Carolina. The Baptist Associations,
and in a large degree the district Methodist Conferences, in that situa-tion
became public forums of the people, not for political discussion
but for educational arousement. They passed unanimous resolutions,
phrased in positive terms of demand, for a change of emphasis in edu-cation
and for practical proposals to extend and improve the common
schools. Three years, 1896-1898, it went on in that fashion until every
section of the State had been affected and the people lined up so far as
Baptists and Methodists could be properly organized for such a cause.
There were two points vividly urged in behalf of popular education.
First: A change of policy, which meant a change of thinking on the
part of leaders, from the aristocratic theory to the democratic theory
of the public school system. It was argued after this style : "Let us
40 Twenty-second Annual Session
stop stacking our educational fodder from the top downward and do it
according to common sense and experience, by laying the foundations
first and then build thereon." It was envisioned that the public school
system had no logical appeal for confidence until this was done, and
that when it was done every educational interest of the State would
flourish, no matter how the winds blew and the floods came, because
it would be founded upon a rock. The proposition of course required
direct appropriations from the Legislature to the common schools before
any appropriations to higher education shotild be increased. The plea
was for the established priority of the elementary schools in claims on
educational statecraft.
Second: A change of heart on the part of the people who were im-mediately
concerned. The condition of their schools was portrayed in
heavy lines. Their inefiiciency, brevity, and poverty of equipment were
held up in rags and tatters. There was little note of controversy in
these appeals—it was patriotic and pathetic. The spirit of cooperation
with any hand stretched out for the healing of the open sore of ISTorth
Carolina life was not only possible but desirable so far as the leaders
of the campaign were concerned. In 1897 Dr. Charles D. Mclver, who
was outside the breastworks of the Baptist and Methodist agitation,
and Mr. J. W. Bailey, who was distinctly a leader on the inside of it,
were associated together respectively as chairman and secretary of a
movement to promote a special-tax campaign. Alas for that, it was a
dismal disappointment. Out of 938 districts, only seven voted the
special tax. After that essay it was more evident than ever that the
tide would not turn until a positive beginning had been made in the
form of a pronounced policy of the General Assembly. In 1898 this
was the battle-cry. The General Assembly must show the people that
the State's policy was going in for the relief of the common schools
and the~ precedence of their claims in all educational legislation. The
Constitution was invoked as a challenge to the candidates for the Legis-lature
since they were to swear to support and sustain it. They were
questioned on the stump : "Will you put the common schools first in
appropriation for education? Will you favor legislation to carry out
as fast and far as possible the mandatory cause of the Constitution?"
The election occurred in August, 1898. It soon became known that the
return of the Democratic party to power would bring to Raleigh a
General Assembly constituted largely of Baptists and Methodists with-out
any significance of sectarianism, but with the great significance of
fact that the Legislature was overwhelmingly strong for putting the
common schools on a forward-moving program of legislation. The
group of men who had led the agitation caused a bill to be drawn
State Literary and Historical Association 41
appropriating out of the public treasury $100,000 for the common
schools. Mr. Charles H. Mebane's was the hand that drew that bill.
It was typewritten in copy in the office of the Mission Board of the
Baptist State Convention and placed in the hands of its champions in
the Senate and the House : Mr. Stephen Mclntyre, of Robeson, and
John B. Holman, of Iredell. It went through triumphantly, though
not without opposition, both from the inside and from the outside of
the Legislature. Historically this action marked the sharp, initial,
practical beginning of that turn in the tide for popular education which
in the next fifteen years would flood the State with enthusiasm for the
present public school system in North Carolina.
In the nature of reminiscence of the good fighting of that year, I
venture to recall that the Democratic State Executive Committee had
realized that the campaign of the Biblical Recorder and others had
won out. From that committee assurance was voluntarily proffered
that no bills carrying appropriations for higher education would be
permitted to pass the Legislature without the consent of those who were
leading the fight in the State for the primacy of the common schools.
The pledge of the Democratic leaders came to test before the joint com-mittee
on appropriations in the Legislature at its first meeting, and
the State Executive Committee made good its unasked-for pledge abso-lutely.
The appropriations desired by the University, the State Normal
College, and the A. and M. College were referred to the generosity of
Mr. Bailey and Mr. White. I am glad to tell you that they were as
generous as possible under the circumstances, and that from that inci-dent
onward a new entente of fellowship and sympathy between the
State colleges and the denominational colleges began a development
uninterrupted at this hour.
The Great Consummation
With the dawn of 1900, seven years lay behind in which the gospel
of popular education had been preached from platforms and pulpits
reaching to every community in North Carolina. Public sentiment in
the rural districts, aroused and sometimes inflamed, had been confirmed
in repeated resolutions of public assemblies. The moribund situation
had given way at the end of 1899 to the sense of something moving in
a new direction for the public schools. With the dawn of 1900 con-ditions
justified the leaders of the Democratic party in believing that
a constitutional amendment carrying the 1908 educational qualifica-tional
clause for white people could be passed. We know what hap-pened
in North Carolina in that year. North Carolina in all her his-tory
has never known anything better than what did happen. Due
42 Twenty-second Annual Session
credit certainly must be given to tlie constitutional amendment for its
coercive effect as law upon popular education. But the greatest thing
that happened was Charles B. Aycock. I^orth Carolina found her
captain, gave him his own trumpet to blow, and the children's children
standard to bear. Alas our captain ! our captain ! Among all the things
cherished and preserved by your speaker of a somewhat oratorical life,
nothing is more cherished than a copy of the Raleigh Morning Post
of January 1, 1899, which reports in eight columns an address made
in behalf of popular education before the joint session of the House
and Senate on the night of December 31, 1898, in which this prophecy
of a great Captain was pleaded
:
The president of a theological seminary was asked the other day what in
his opinion was the greatest need of foreign missions. He reflected, and re-plied,
"A great missionary." If I were asked what the indispensable necessity
of popular education in North Carolina is at this hour, I would reflect and
reply, "A great public man whose heart and brain, time, talents, energy,
everything, is devoted to the cause of the wool-hatted and barefooted army of
over 600,000 children whose only hope for instruction is in the public schools."
I remarked to a gentleman yesterday that North Carolina offered the greatest
opportunity for statesmanship in America. What I meant was that the con-dition
of public education in this State, the deplorable situation with regards
to our public schools in North Carolina afforded the greatest possible oppor-tunity
for some able man to be transformed from a politician into a states-man.
And I believe it with all my heart that the man in the next ten years
of North Carolina life who has been fashioned by nature and experience for
public leadership, and who will be beside himself a fool, a crank, a dedicated,
sanctified agitator for better public schools, whether parties nominate or
people elect to office, or not, whether he offend or whether he please the news-papers,
will create a career so persistent in its claims upon the conscience of
our people, and so write himself into the history of a vital progress, and so
entwine his life into the lives of thousands born and unborn, that sooner or
later, when truth gets a hearing, as in God's good time it always does, that in
the summing-up of achievement and the distribution of laurels, the sage of
history will write his name in letters of fadeless luster.
Too eloquent by half, but a Hebrew prophet would have been very
well satisfied with what was confirmed of its prophecy in JSTorth Caro-lina
in the career of Charles B. Aycock.
The Democratic State Convention of April, 1900, that gave him its
^'harvest of hearts" and his nomination for Governor, met in the con-sciousness
of great and deep emotions. It had its mind on the nomi-nation
of a man without particular regard for his gubernatorial quali-ties
as an administrator. It had the sense of a new day which de-manded
a champion of democracy with especial reference to education.
Before Aycock was nominated, a platform had been adopted for him
to stand on. One of its planks was this
:
State Literary and Historical Association 43
We heartily commend the action of the General Assembly of 1899 for appro-priating
$100,000 for the benefit of the public schools in the State, and pledge
ourselves to increase the school fund so as to make at least a four-months
term in each year in every school district in the State.
I have pleasure in remembering the phraseology because I stood by
the typewriter that clicked it off on the little slip of paper w^hich was
handed in to the Committee on Platform through the Hon. Mike Jus-tice,
of Rutherford. It is needless to say that Charles B. Aycock ap-proved
and in his inaugural address quoted it as the keynote pledge of
the campaign he had made for the amendment. The election of Gov-ernor
Aycock relieved the Baptist Associations and the Methodist Con-ferences
instantly of every ounce of necessity to concern themselves in
resolutions about the common schools in ISTorth Carolina. It put an
end to persistent editorials and passionate speeches on that subject.
Quite naturally to say, from the day he was elected to this hour there
has never been a flutter of agitation in that quarter. There is no
question in anybody's mind, for history has guaranteed that, as to who
did the grand deed of individual leadership which swept the tide for
popular education in JSTorth Carolina. The man's picture hangs in my
home conspicuously among my household gods—Abraham Lincoln,
Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson—and I look at his face every day.
The night before he died in Birmingham I walked up and down with
him in the shed of the old union depot in Atlanta, and we talked of
things that were and are and were to be—of the past and the future of
his career. His was a nature of all generosity. He said in kind refer-ence
to two men whose names I will not call, "Our educational move-ment
in ISTorth Carolina, beginning with the campaign for the amend-ment,
found the soil prepared for it."
We know the story of 1901 to 1922. Everybody knows it, and every-body
honors the men of it. We know that J. Y. Joyner became the
organizing genius and the practical administrator of the great change.
We know that E. C. Brooks and his colleagues have confirmed and
greatly continued the advance of the public school system. 'No one
will be allowed to forget the consuming zeal of Charles D. Mclver and
others. I have only given you a leaf of unwritten record which the
historian cannot neglect. The pioneering of effective propaganda for
the common schools in North Carolina was as I have related it. We
were the first to break with a shout that had. echoes in it into the dreary
and complacent sea of inertia and stolid prejudice. The shibboleths of
that agitation became the principles of this progress which tingles in
the hearts and dances in the eyes of I^orth Carolinians at home and
abroad in 1922.
44 Twenty-second Annual Session
It was read in the newspapers a few months ago that when Marshal
Foch, the Generalissimo of the World War, in his American tour came
to the city of Detroit he was wearied to exhaustion. The clamorous
applause of the multitude had ceased to arouse his interest. There the
mayor of the city turned to him and told him a little story of how
Hennipin had sailed into the Detroit River in 1679 and had written
these words in his diary:
Those wlio will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile plain and
pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown the way.
At these words the tears rushed to the eyes of the great soldier.
Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced
the World
By Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain
History is an ordering and condensing of social detail so as to present
facts as truth.
Because the study of small communities and the influence going out
from them is an introduction, and indeed the best of introductions to
history in its broader sense, and because such study is thoroughly fasci-nating
by reason of its own intrinsic interest, I have chosen for my
subject the work of two editors, whose personalities and the ideas they
advocated are intimately twined into the progress of our county.
More than a century ago Joseph Gales became editor of the first
newspaper established at the capital of I^orth Carolina. It was a
Jeffersonian sheet; it represented popular aspirations, and was the
channel through which many ideas of those fermenting times were
brought home to the minds, and influenced the opinions of the citizens
of old ISTorth Carolina.
Joseph Gales came here in the last months of 1799. He was a re-markable
man for ability, for adventure, and for wide experience of
men. The fact that he was self-educated, and was at the same time
an experienced journalist, made him the more skillful in sowing ideas
among the plain people of our community; and he must surely have
furnished the kindly leisures of our great-grandfathers with much
first-hand matter to discuss. His sympathy with his chosen home, and
his thorough identification of himself with it, made him a man who
would be readily liked and often quoted.
^ot many newspapers were published then, but those few were
thoroughly read. They led public opinion. They were not so often
as today mere followers of the prevalent beliefs, and intensifiers of the
prejudices of their readers. Instead of walking but a few steps in
front of the largest, noisiest crowd, as some so-called "yellow journals"
have done, they had more originality. They were formative influences,
even as viewed through the diminishing telescope of the lapse of time.
Gales had been a poor boy, born in Yorkshire, England, apprenticed
to a printer; and he set up for himself in due time his own newspaper
in Sheflield, already a great manufacturing town. He and his paper
were identified with the best liberal Whig ideals of England, just
subsequent to the defeat of the British at Yorktown—the time when
Pitt and the statesmen with him bethought themselves of the reason-
46 Twenty-second Annual Session
ableness of those demands, which, when denied to their colonies had
brought on the successful war of the Revolution.
In the England of that time reform, scientific discovery, the growth
of manufacturing, the increase of dissent, and the rosy dawn of the
French Revolution were all mixed into a web of rapid changes. Among
the advocates of the several measures of reform. Gales, by means of
his influential paper, was the peer of any. He was assisted in his
editorship by a wife whose antecedents were more cultured than his
own, but who shared his opinions, and was a woman of the greatest
talent and spirit. She was one of the early "Blue Stockings." She
wrote novels, and although the work of her pioneer efforts at self-expression,
as well as that of all the rest of her sister authoresses, not
excepting the great Mrs. Hannah Moore herself, has gone completely
out of fashion, yet their influence on their age was great. Dr. Samuel
Johnson said of these ladies : "A woman's preaching or writing is like
a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are
surprised to find it done at all." So spoke the Great Lexicographer,
that knock-down joker.
Gales's partner in his publishing business in Sheffield was James
Montgomery, a writer of hymns, which are still to be found in our
hymn books. "Hail to the Lord's Anointed" is one, and "Hark the
Song of Jubilee!" another. In the second we can still feel the breath
of new hope for humanity such as men felt when France convened her
first "States General." The hymn might be called a sanctified "Ca
Ira."
vGales must have been aware of the first Sunday school in 1781. He
afterwards became the first Sunday school superintendent in Raleigh,
when union services for the little city were held in the old State House.
>ile was a religious man. He felt a devoted admiration for Dr. Priestley
of Birmingham. He did not on that account feel afraid to show friend-ship
to Thomas Paine, that celebrated Deistic Quaker whose opportune
book, "The Rights of Man," set American sentiment unitedly in the
direction of the Revolution, and just in the nick of time.
Although Paine was later furnished with horns and a tail by the
popular imagination, after his other work, "The Age of Reason," was
printed, in which he insisted that belief in God must go the same way
/as submission to kings; yet he was a writer of power who had great
influence in his day. Mrs. Gales said of him, when she entertained him
in her house, that she found him "a gentle, kindly soul."
Dr. Priestley, the learned Unitarian divine, who interspersed his
treatises on theology and early excursions into the "Higher Criticism,"
the first that we hear of, with books about his own scientific discoveries,
State Literary^ and Historical Association 47
was also an intimate friend of the Galeses, and both he and his friends
were caught in the same back-wash of conservative sentiment when the
French killed their king.
So terribly did this deed shock Englishmen that the partisans of the
Prench Revolution in England, of whom Edmund Burke was one, could
scarcely disown all ideas connected with it hastily enough; and because
some convinced liberals. Radicals they were then called, continued to
demand prison reform and the suppression of "Rotten Boroughs," they
were subjected to the persecution of Tory mobs. Dr. Priestley's labora-tory
apparatus was thrown into the street in Birmingham, in the same
way as the types of Joseph Gales' printing office in Sheffield. Both
were indicted for treason. Both had to flee to America.
Joseph Gales remained two years in Schleswig-Holstein, then a part
of Denmark, there awaiting his wife, and after her coming, failing
immediate departure, as they planned, because a seaworthy vessel was
not at once available.
Mrs. Gales, no clinging vine she, sold out the business successfully
before she went to Denmark, and the pair with their family reached
Philadelphia safely in 1-795.
I would like to stop and turn back here, to tell in detail how bravelyX
Mrs. Gales faced her own mob, how she was protected in her home by
the working men of Sheffield, after her husband's flight, and how, when
they had begun their voyage across the ocean, when their vessel was
taken by pirates, she talked these sea-hawks into letting their prey sail
on unharmed to America. Arriving there, how she reproved Willie
Jones for profane swearing, how she wrote the first novel ever printed \
in ISTorth Carolina—the first, and for so very long, the only one. "-^
Also it would be good hunting to describe the time when the Tory
authorities had to send for Joseph Gales, the printer, to quiet a wild
Sheffield mob, which he was able to pacify; and to tell how Gales used
his unexpected delay in Holland to learn two new languages, and the
then unusual art of shorthandJ How also he grew friendly with many
celebrated Emigres, and how Madame de Genlis wished to adopt the
baby Altona Gales, and again, how they saw General Pichegru, of the
red Revolutionary Army of Prance, go skating to the conquest of Hol-land
over the ice of the River Elbe.
After all these exciting experiences the pair must have been glad to
reach a quiet haven and a life of less uncertainty, when, in the fall
of 1799, they came to Raleigh to start the Raleigh Register.
Among the IN'orth Carolina delegation to Congress, still meeting in
Philadelphia, were Nathaniel Macon and Willie Jones. Both were
Jeffersonians. Then as now people were divided into two opinions.
48 Twenty-second Annual Session
Conservatives wlio did not fully trust tlie common man, liberals who
were willing to try him. At that time, much more than today, party
lines were strictly drawn between these two camps. Jefferson, who
was a strong enthusiast for the French ideals of liberty, equality and
fraternity, gave his name to the rising party representing these senti-ments.
]^orth Carolina had at that time more population than ISTew York
State.
President Adams and the Federalists had lately passed the "Alien
and Sedition Acts," which were most unpopular. JSTorth Carolina was
a close State politically, and the Jeffersonians saw their opportunity.
They were glad to discover in Joseph Gales, lately come to Philadel-phia,
an able man whose political opinions were distinctly Jeffersonian,
who could worthily edit the paper they wished to start in Raleigh, that
new little Capital-in-the-woods.
Gales' new paper was the old Sheffield one revived. It bore the same
name. The Register. It was decorated with the same emblem, or head-ing,
of the liberty pole and cap, and it expressed the same sympathy
for the under dog. It professed also the same passion for reform as
when it had been issued in Sheffield. Its editor was from henceforth
a part of this city. He was its mayor for term after term. He be-came
State Printer after the Jeffersonians or "Republicans" came into
power.
I
He opened a book shop when he arrived in Raleigh, and among his
first list of books for sale we find the authors Godwin, Paine, Rousseau
and Adam Smith. In one of his early editorials occur these words
:
"What is the world but one wide family on which the Common Parent
looks with the eye of equal protection." Again, "To choose a good
\cause is to select one which selfish men dislike."
His paper became a great disseminator of information on agricul-tural
subjects; it published careful accounts of the discoveries and
improvements which came so thickly in the beginning of the century
past. JMr. Gales was always a friend to every idea which meant prog-ress
or benefit to those who could not help themselves. Education,
Temperance, Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Care of the Insane, Internal
Impro^ments—in all these questions he was far ahead of his fellow
citizensj
He trained three generations of editors. His son and his son-in-law
were partners in establishing and editing the National Intelligencer,
the first Washington newspaper, which gave authoritative reports of the
debates of Congress. Another son and a son's son were successively
editors of Raleigh. His descendants are many and worthy today.
I
State Literaey and Historical Association 49
Such a man's influence is impossible to estimate, difficult to limit.
I think we can take for granted for that time, as for this, the dearth
of constructive reasoning and the lack of educational progressive leader-ship,
and may be allowed to justify high praise of a man who supplied
both to his State for many years, and indirectly to his country.
Some one has said that the axis of the earth sticks out visibly at the
place which each of us calls home. In connecting the life of Mr. Gales
with our center, we noted the beginning, how it was rooted in signifi-cant
times of his native England, while the flowering came with us.
American history has not hitherto taken enough notice of or given
enough credit to our "Americans by Choice."
The second of these chosen sowers of seed, of whom I am to speak,
had indeed his day in the great world, and a glorious one; but it was
here on our own soil, here on our own red clay hills that he had his
origin. Some day we will better value the distinction which this
gives us.
The recently published Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Hen-drick,
is an admirably planned book, with skillful selection of those
letters which best show the mind of the man. It has one fault which
slaps a Wake County, ^orth Carolina, person smartly in the face. Mr.
Hendrick always thinks of Walter Page as a world figure. He would
rather have him, as it seems, just happen, like Melchisedec, without
genealogy or local attachment. He emphasizes this. He takes pains
to tell us that Mr. Page's education was almost wholly obtained out-side
of JNTorth Carolina, and ignores the home influence on a young
man's life and thought. He stresses the fact that Mr. Page was unap-preciated,
and therefore had to leave us.
l^ow when a man's forbears have lived for three generations in a
locality, and when he himself has continuously remained there until his
later teens, he can never lose the mark of his nativitv, even if he wishes
it very earnestly. Mr. Page never wished anything like that for a
moment. People who knew him, and who knew his "folks," will main-tain
that he is no "bud variation" or "mutation." He was the "square-root
of his ancestors."
That exquisite precision of his in the use of words, whereby things
are said finally, and the nerve of a fallacy is punctured so that it can
never squirm again, is not unknown as a talent in some of his kin. As
a boy he could marshal his thoughts and tell them in plain, well-selected
words. That he was well educated was his own doing. It was the
quality of the man who went to Johns Hopkins, and to Germany, which
made the education effective.
50 Twenty-second Annual Session
When lie came to Raleigli to edit tlie Chronicle lie had become a m.ost
active principle, fit to stir up a passive society. Some people are born
with the love of the past in their hearts, and others with the question-ing
of existing institutions upon their lips. Of the latter was young
Walter Page.
Imagine such a man, in the vigor of his independent youth, turned
loose in a land of sore memories. Here at that time it was like the home
of the old, where all is kept sacred; a place where, after supreme effort
relaxed, the daily habit was to "sit in the sun and tell old tales." Being
the man he was, he felt scant sympathy with all this, as a regnant
mood. He did not truly estimate the depth of the post-war ennui. He
did not think seriously enough of the old soldier's inevitable worship
of the past.
They say that even today, in this America, there are young men who
cannot get away from the World War, who cannot march breast forward
into the new day. They turn back mentally, because they feel that their
greatest significance as individuals is already past.
Mr. Page loved N^orth Carolina. He saw her possibilities. He knew
her latent power. He inspired many of those who have brought about,
since then, the things that have counted for progress. He shot his
ideas, like arrows, into the hearts of his circle of young men friends.
The things he told us, the shrewd comments he injected under our hides
by his keen criticism, we have never forgotten. Even till this day we
are taking the time to prove that he overstated, by doing all those things
which he evidently feared we might not do.
Prophets have been noted for telling unpleasant truths from the
earliest times, and every young man who begins reformer is made to
suffer for it.
Very soon, because we could not pay him a living for his wares, he
went to fill a more conspicuous place than that of the small town editor
of a weekly newspaper. The editorship of several significant periodicals
culminated for him in the chair of the staid, long-established, oracular
Atlantic Monthly of Boston. Prom that he went to become founder of
The World's Worh, more his own pattern of a monthly.
When he left ISTorth Carolina he took her with him. As often as he
visited his old home he brought her some solution to her problems. A
man is—precisely what he does. For the great "State College" which
calls its thousand young men each year and teaches them to use the
State's resources, for the ISTorth Carolina Woman's College which util-izes
the real value of our girls' brains, so long a waste product—for the
first and for the second of these educational achievements I am not
State Literaky and Historical Association 51
going to give him all the credit. Let him portion out the praise who
can: so much to Page, so much to the Watauga Club, so much to those
other notable apostles of better education, such as Mclver and Aycock.
Whatever was done then, Page was there, in word and inspiration,
at the doing of it. But perhaps his greatest service to his own State
was his interest in the health welfare of our Southern country.
When Dr. Stiles, of the Education Bureau, gave in Raleigh his first
semi-public lecture on the discovery of the cause of the malady which
was killing so many at the South, I sat upon the front bench to hear
him, the only woman there, eyed as a strange cat in the garret by the
group of physicians, plus a few cotton mill executives, there assembled.
The great calming satisfaction, felt when the true reason for a strange
and baffling phenomenon is laid in one's hand to keep forever, was my
abundant reward when I went away.
We know all about these things now. A cotton mill village, a country
school, may be as rosy and as healthy as to its children as the best resi-dence
street. This also by the help of Walter Page. Yes, he has kept
us on our toes, to show how well we can do, ^'but and if we would." We
should thank him, we should honor him, we should never take it out in
roasting his one novel, "The Southerner," because in it he never quite
guessed the feelings of the old Confederate soldier, first defeated, and
then "excoriated" by Reconstruction doings
!
All the story of the great World War is not yet written. Page's
acting of his own part as Ambassador to Great Britain, which I admire
exceedingly, is however ready for posterity's verdict.
Some recent reviewer has called him the "Modern Franklin," inas-much
as he was the interpreter of things American to the great British
Empire, when, lacking mutual understanding, we might have gone
under together along with our common civilization.
He seems also to have had laid on him the task of expressing Eng-land's
inarticulate soul to America, to have combated successfully the
dogged determination of certain elements not to consider the inevita-bility
of our joining the Allies.
International sympathy and international friendship was better than
too much raw international candor; and here again I shall claim that
old kinship; that Wake County, JN^orth Carolina, folhsyness, alive in
her distinguished son, played a part in saving the world when it rein-forced
the greater qualities possessed by Walter Hines Page. In l!^orth
Carolina we enjoy people, we like kindly gossip, we discuss and taste
the differences of personality among our friends with loving discrimina-tion,
as some more sophisticated societies forget to do.
• • •
• • •
• •••
•» • - . » » o
» » • ^ »
> « * )
> «
>«• * * ^ m 4 * *
• •• % •
a • • • ••
t « « » » •
. , > >
,
'
I * > > » 5
c f
52 Twenty-second Annual Session
Mr. Page filled tlie conceptions of tlie English as to true democratic
ways and easy manners. He liked their individuality, and they felt it;
he became to them a more idealistic Franklin, a truly democratic rep-resentative
of a great Democracy. He was precisely the man; they
esteemed him.
Besides all this, we read in his letters how well his heart remembered
the things his boyhood knew.
How clearly we hear this when he chooses to touch that key. How
he recalled the heart of the struggling woods where he roamed as a boy;
how he remembered the smells of growing things outdoors under our
sweltering summer sun ; how he saw in his mind's eye the glorious color
of a clay bank in the golden light of autumn, and heard the whirr of the
partridge startling out of the blackberry thicket in early winter.
JSTature he knew and loved as his boyhood had found it. The pine
trees were always ^'kind to him." How dear to him was that "Little
grove of long-leaved pines" in the country he called his own
!
Yes, I take issue with his excellent biographer ; he was a Southerner.
He was far more that person than the gentleman in question might
ever be able to guess. Because of that fact and that nurture he was a
most important link, I am tempted to say the most important link in
the final will united to victory of the Allies.
c t
. t c c c a I
c t at
» « * t «
«• • * It a •
Missions of the Moravians in North Carolina Among
Southern Indian Tribes
By Edmund Schwarze, Ph.D.
Pastor Calvai-y Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N. C.
History and fiction of which the American Indian is the subject are
invested with peculiar fascination and interest. Those who remember

PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
Twenty-second Annual Session
OF THE
State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH
DECEMBER 7-8, 1922
Compiled by
R. B. HOUSE, Secretary
3 -J J ) 5 5
3 > i •) ->
:>
~>
0)3 3 J ) 3 3 >3 * ' 3
3 5 3 > 3
, 3 3 3 > 3
3 3 ' !< 3
RALEIGH
Bynum Printing Company
State Printers
1923
The North Carolina Historical Commission
T. M. PiTTMAN, Chairman, Henderson
M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill Heriot Clarkson, Charlotte
Frank Wood, Edenton W. N. Everett, Raleigh
D. H. Hill, Secretary, Raleigh
R. B, House, Archivist, Raleigh
c ' c < r c
' * * c c < c <
Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
1921-1922
President William K. Boyd, Durham.
First Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Mrs. D. H. Blair, Greensboro.
Third Vice-President John Jordan Douglass, Wadesboro.
Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh.
Executive Committee
(With above officers)
W. C. Jackson, Greensboro. D. H. Hill, Raleigh,
J. G. deR. Hamilton, Chapel Hill Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest.
1922-1923
President Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem.
First Vice-President Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest.
Third Vice-President Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, Raleigh.
Secretary R. B. House, Raleigh.
Executive Committee
(With above officers)
R. D. W. Connor, Chapel Hill. C. C. Pearson, Wake Forest.
W. K. Boyd, Chapel Hill. Gen. J. S. Carr, Durham.
Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh, John J. Blair, Raleigh.
PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
ASSOCIATION
"The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of State litera-ture
and history
;
"The encouragement of public and school libraries
;
"The establishment of an historical museum ;
"The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people
;
"The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina
;
and
"The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising genera-tions."
ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES
All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the
Association. The dues are one dollar a year, to be paid to the secretary.
RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
( Organized October, 1900
)
Fiscal Paid-up
Years Presidents Secretaries Membership
1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150
1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139
1902-1903 W. L. PoTEAT George S. Fraps 73
1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127
1904-1905 Robert W. Winston Clarence Poe 109
1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185
1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301
1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273
1908-1909 Junius Davis , Clarence Poe 311
1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440
1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425
1911-1912 R. D.W.Connor Clarence Poe 479
1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476
1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435
1914-1915 Clarence Poe R. D. W. Connor 412
1915-1916 Howard E. Rondthaler R. D. W. Connor 501
1916-1917 H.A.London R. D. W. Connor 521
1917-1918 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 453
1918-1919 James Sprunt R. D. W. Connor 377
1919-1920 J. G. deR. Hamilton R. D. W. Connor 493
1920-1921 D.H.Hill R. B. House 430
1921-1922 W.K.Boyd R. B. House 430
1922-1923 Adelaide lliiEs R. B. House 450
THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
Established 1905 ; discontinued 1922
The Conditions of Award Officially Set Forth by Mrs. Patterson
To the President and Executive Committee of the Literary and Historical
Association of North Carolina:
As a memorial to my father, and with a view to stimulating effort among
the writers of North Carolina, and to awaken among the people of the State
an interest in their own literature, I desire to present to your Society a loving
cup, upon the following stipulations, which I trust will meet with your ap-proval
and will be found to be just and practicable
:
1. The cup will be known as the "William Houston Patterson Memorial
Cup."
2. It will be awarded at each annual meeting of your Association for ten
successive years, beginning with October, 1905,
3. It will be given to that resident of the State who during the twelve
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the year
of the award has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its
length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius. The
work must be published during the said twelve months, and no manuscript
nor any unpublished writings will be considered.
4. The name of the successful competitor will be engraved upon the cup,
with the date of award, and it will remain in his possession until October 1st
of the following year, when it shall be returned to the Treasurer of the
Association, to be by him held in trust until the new award of your annual
meeting that month. It will become the permanent possession of the one
winning it oftenest during the ten years, provided he shall have won it three
times. Should no one, at the expiration of that period, have won it so often,
the competition shall continue until that result is reached. The names of
only those competitors who shall be living at the time of the final award shall
be considered in the permanent disposition of the cup.
5. The Board of Award shall consist of the President of the Literary and
Historical Association of North Carolina, who will act as chairman, and of
the occupants of the chairs of English Literature at the University of North
Carolina, at Davidson College, at Wake Forest College, and at the State Col-lege
of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Raleigh, and of the chairs of History
at the University of North Carolina and Trinity College.
6. If any of these gentlemen should decline or be unable to serve, their
successors shall be appointed by the remaining members of the board, and
these appointees may act for the whole unexpired term or for a shorter time,
as the board may determine. Notice of the inability of any member to act
must be given at the beginning of the year during which he declines to serve,
so that there may be a full committee during the entire term of each year.
7. The publication of a member of the board will be considered and passed
upon in the same manner as that of any other writer.
Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson.
SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTION
According to a resolution adopted at the 19€8 session of tlie Literary and
Historical Association, it is also provided that no author desiring to have his
work considered in connection with the award of the cup shall communicate
with any member of the committee, either personally or through a representa-tive.
Books or other publications to be considered, together with any com-munication
regarding them, must be sent to the Secretary of the Association
and by him presented to the chairman of the committee for consideration.
AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
1905
John Chaeles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as
"Songs, Merry and Sad."
1906
Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier."
1907
Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina."
1908
—
Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina."
1909
Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe."
1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett : An Essay in North Carolina
History."
1911
Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw : His Life and
Works."
1912—Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up."
1913
Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders."
1914—J. G. deR. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina."
1915
William Louis Poteat, for "The New Peace."
1916—No award.
1917
Mrs. Olive Tilford Dargan, for "The Cycle's Rim."
1918—No award.
1919—No award.
1920
Miss Winifred Kirkland, for "The New Death."
1921—No award.
1922
Josephus Daniels, for "Our Navy at War."
FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP
Raleigh, N. C, March 16, 1923.
Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, Winston-Salem, N. C.
Dear Mrs. Patterson :—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the
Literary and Historical Association yesterday, it was decided to discontinue
tlie award of the Patterson Memorial Cup and to deposit the cup as a per-manent
memorial in the Hall of History. This decision was reached only
after it had been ascertained that such disposition was agreeable to you.
As you will remember, the original contest was to continue for ten years,
with the idea that if any one author should win the cup three times it would
become his property. Although Dr. Clarence Poe won the cup twice, the con-dition
of winning it three times was not met by any one author. The contest
was therefore continued indefinitely, at the discretion of the executive com-mittee.
The following situation has arisen : the space on the cup for engrav-ing
the names of the winners has been entirely filled, and since the cup has
met adequately the purpose for which it was established, it is deemed best to
establish the cup, as it is now engraved, as a permanent memorial in the Hall
of History.
The effectiveness of the cup as a stimulant to literary effort in North Caro-lina
will be clear to you from the record of its award.
In retiring the cup, the executive committee reserves the right to establish
again, as soon as practicable, some other form of literary reward, so that it
will gratify you to know that the idea established by you in the award of the
Patterson Cup is likely to be a permanent stimulant to literary effort in the
State.
It is hardly necessary to express to you the deep appreciation, not only of
the Literary and Historical Association itself, but of all the people of North
Carolina, for your sincere interest and cooperation in the purposes of the
State Literary and Historical Association.
With best wishes and highest regards,
Sincerely yours,
Adelaide Fries, President.
R. B. House, Secretary.
WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE;
SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT
1. Rural libraries.
2. ''North Carolina Day" in the schools.
3. The North Carolina Historical Commission.
4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall.
5. Fireproof State Library Building and Hall of Records.
6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record.
7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated.
8. Patterson Memorial Cup.
Contents
Page
Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session . 9
The American Revolution and Reform in the South, by W. K. Boyd 14
When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in North Caro-lina,
1890-1900, by John E. White 33
Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced the World,
by Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain 45
Missions of the Moravians of North Carolina Among the Southern
Indian Tribes, by Edmund Schwarze 53
Concerning a History of North Carolina Administrative Departments,
by C. C. Pearson , 70
Use of Books and Libraries in North Carolina, by L. R. Wilson 73
North Carolina Bibliography, 1921-1922, by Mary B. Palmer 87
The Cult of the Second Best, by Walter Lippmann 90
Members, 1921-1922 97
Proceedings and Addresses of the State Literary
and Historical Association of North Carolina
Minutes of the Twenty-second Annual Session
Raleigh, December 7-8, 1922
Thursday Evening, December 7th
The twenty-second annual session of the State Literary and Histori-cal
Association of JSTorth Carolina was called to order in the auditorium
of the Woman's Club of Raleigh, Thursday evening, December 7th, at
8 o'clock, with President W. K, Boyd in the chair. The session was
opened with invocation by Rev. Henry G. Lane, pastor of the Church
of the Good Shepherd, Raleigh. Dr. Boyd then read the annual ad-dress
of the president. He was followed by Dr. John E. White, Presi-dent
of Anderson College, who addressed the Association on "When the
Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in l^orth Carolina, 1890-
1900." After Dr. White's address there was a reception for the mem-bers
of the Association, the Folk Lore Society, and their guests, in the
Club Building.
Friday Morning, December 8th
The Friday morning session, December 8th, was called to order by
President Boyd at 11 o'clock a. m., in the House of Representatives.
The President presented to the Association Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain, of
Raleigh, who read a paper entitled, "Two Wake County Editors Whose
Work Has Influenced the World." She was followed by Dr. Edmund
Schwarze, of Winston-Salem, who read a paper on "Missions of the
Moravians in l^orth Carolina Among Southern Indian Tribes." The
President then presented Dr. C. C. Pearson, of Wake Forest College,
who read a paper on "Concerning a History of IN^orth Carolina Admin-istrative
Departments." He was followed by Dr. L. R. Wilson, of the
University of N'orth Carolina, whose subject v/as "Use of Books and
Libraries in l^orth Carolina." Miss Mary B. Palmer, who was to read
the bibliography of ISTprth Carolina for the year 1921-1922, was unable
to be present. She sent in her paper for publication, and Miss Carrie L.
Broughton, State Librarian, made an exhibit of books of the year.
L
10 Twenty-second Annual Session
At the conclusion of tlie exercises the following business was trans-acted
:
The president appointed the following
:
Committee on Nominations—W. C. Jackson, W. W. Pierson, Miss
Carrie L. Broughton.
Committee on Resolutions—D. H. Hill, Marshall DeL. Haywood,
Charles Lee Smith.
Committee on a North Carolina Poetry Society—C. A. Hibbard,
Miss I^ell B. Lewis, Roger McCutcheon, Gerald Johnson.
This last committee was appointed in response to the following
resolution
:
"Having canvassed the situation, and feeling that there is a definite interest
in the criticism and writing of verse, we respectfully petition the President of
the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to appoint a com-mittee
of organization with a view to promoting a poetry society for North
Carolina. ,,,^ ^ ^.
"N. I. White,
"Nell Battle Lewis,
"John Jordan Douglass,
"C. A. Hibbard, Chairman."
General Julian S. Carr obtained the floor on behalf of the Sir Walter
Raleigh Memorial Committee. In the course of his remarks he endorsed
in high terms the services of W. J. Peele in the work on the memorial
and as a founder of ISTorth Carolina State College, and the Literary and
Historical Association. He offered the following resolution, which was
carried
:
Resolved, That the movement inaugurated by the North Carolina Historical
Society in the year 1902 to erect a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh in
the city of Raleigh be properly reorganized and recognized by this Society.
Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton offered the following resolution, which
was carried
:
"We, the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution, wish to
express ourselves as solidly behind the movement to erect the Sir Walter
Raleigh monument, and will do everything possible to assist General Carr and
others interested in this movement.
(Signed) "Mary Hilliard Hinton,
Regent.
"Nina Holland Covington,
Recording Secretary."
>-
State Literary and Historical Association 11
This was followed by a tliird resolution made by Dr. J. Y. Joyner,
and carried, as follows
:
Moved, that General Carr be made Chairman of the Sir Walter Raleigh
Memorial Committee of twenty-five, and that the chairman, the incoming
president and the secretary of this association be authorized to select and
announce the other members of this committee.
The president, through the secretary, reported the following revised
constitution, which was carried unanimously
:
NAME
This association shall be called the State Literary and Historical Associa-tion
of North Carolina.
PURPOSES
The purposes of this association shall be the collection, preservation, pro-duction,
and dissemination of our State literature and history ; the encourage-ment
of public and school libraries ; the establishment of an historical
museum ; the inculcation of a literary spirit among our people ; the correction
of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina ; and the engender-ing
of a healthy State pride among the rising generations.
OFFICERS
The officers of the association shall be a president, first, second, and third
vice-presidents, and a secretary, whose terms of office shall be for one year
and until their successors shall be elected and qualified. They shall be elected
by the association at its annual meetings, except that vacancies in any office
may be filled by the executive committee until the meeting of the association
occurring next thereafter.
The president shall preside over all the meetings of the association, and
appoint all members of committees, except where it is otherwise provided,
and look after the general interest of the association. In case of the death or
resignation of the president, his successor shall be selected by the executive
committee from the vice-presidents.
The secretary shall be the administrative officer of the association. He
shall keep the books and funds, receive money for the association, and dis-burse
it for purposes authorized by the executive committee. He shall strive
by all practicable means to increase the membership and influence of the
association.
COMMITTEES
There shall be an executive committee, composed of the president, the sec-retary,
and six others, two of whom shall be appointed each year by the
incoming president, to serve three years : Provided, that at the annual ses-sion,
1922, four members shall be elected by the association, as follows : two
members to serve one year, and two to serve two years. The president, sec-retary,
and any other three members shall constitute a quorum for the trans-action
of business.
12 Twenty-second Annual Session
The executive committee shall make programs and arrangements for all
meetings of the association, supervise all business matters, receive all reports
of officers, endeavor especially to secure from philanthropic citizens donations
toward a permanent fund of endowment, and in general promote the purpose
of the association. The executive committee shall be subject to the general
supervision of the association.
There shall be such other committees appointed by the president to serve
during his term of office for such time and such purposes as he shall see fit.
MEMBERSHIP
All persons interested in its purposes and desiring to have a part in pro-moting
them are eligible to membership in the association. They will be duly
enrolled upon receipt of the annual membership fee.
FEES
The annual membership fee shall be one dollar, to be paid to the secretary.
MEETINGS
There shall be one regular annual meeting, the time and place of which
shall be determined by the executive committee. Other meetings may be
arranged by the executive committee.
AUXILIARY SOCIETIES
Auxiliary societies may be organized, with the advice of, and under the
supervision of, the executive committee.
Fkiday Afternoon, December 8th
In the rooms of the iSTorth Carolina Historical Commission, Chair-man
W. C. Jackson called to order a conference of I*^orth Carolina his-tory
teachers. Discussion was led by Mr. Charles L. Coon and Mr. Guy
B. Phillips, and participated in by numerous teachers of history. The
conference was held Friday afternoon, December 8th.
Friday Evening, December 8th
On Friday evening, December 8th, President Boyd called the meeting
to order in the auditorium of Meredith College. He presented Prof.
Louis Graves, of the University of ISTorth Carolina, who presented the
speaker of the evening, Mr. Walter Lippmann, of the 'New York World.
Mr. Lippmann read a paper on "The Cult of the Second Best," after
which there was brief discussion by question and answer between Mr.
Lippmann and his audience. At the conclusion of the address Dr. T. P.
Harrison, of the State College, in a brief and graceful speech rendered
the report of the Patterson Cup Committee, awarding the cup for 1922
to Hon. Josephus Daniels, for his book, "Our l^avy at War."
State Literary and Historical Association 13
The Committee on Resolutions reported the following resolution,
which was carried
:
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North
Carolina commends the establishment of county libraries, and urges county
authorities to consider this plan as the most feasible to promote county-wide
library service. D. H. Hill, Chairman.
The Committee on ^dominations reported as follows :
Officers: President—Miss Adelaide Fries, Winston-Salem; 1st Vice-
President—Bishop Joseph B. Cheshire, Raleigh; 2d Vice-President
—
Dr. Benjamin Sledd, Wake Forest; 3d Vice-President—Mrs. J. R.
Chamberlain, Raleigh; Secretary—R. B. House, Raleigh.
Members of the Executive Committee: R. D. W. Connor, Chapel
Hill; W. K. Boyd, Durham; Miss Carrie L. Broughton, Raleigh; C. C.
Pearson, Wake Forest.
The Association adjourned sine die.
ADDRESSES
The American Revolution and Reform in the South
By Wm.. K. Boyd
President State Literary and Historical Association
The past decade lias witnessed a profound change in the public
opinion and policies of the United States. In 1914 we had placed new
wine in old bottles and under the domination of a party noted for its
conservatism we were experimenting with governmental supervision of
business and finance, adopting a new program of taxation, and con-sidering
certain measures leading to social democracy; then toward the
end of the World War we championed a policy of international co-operation.
Today we have reached a point of extreme reaction. Alarmed
at the forces unloosed by the cataclysm in Europe we have conceived
a nebulous state of normalcy; for national self-preservation we have
retired behind the cloak of isolation, political and economic. Alarmed
at the prevalence of new political and social ideals, free speech is
limited, free teaching is restricted, personal liberty to travel to and
fro is denied, and the alien is restrained from seeking in America a
refuge from old world conditions. Moreover, in reaction against any-thing
new we have fallen back in national administration into the old
trough dedicated to the sacred theory of the separation of the powers.
Today we stand as the most conservative rather than the most progres-sive
and forward-looking of the great nations of the world.
The present confusion in opinion, the uncertainty in the national
state of mind, should be stimulating to those who are historically
minded. This is not the first period in our national life when existing
institutions and the social structure have been questioned ; by no means
the first time when some have turned blindly to the ancient landmarks
and others have sought an anchorage in new principles. While history
never repeats and comparisons are always dangerous, there are certain
phenomena of parallel interest with the present turmoil and uncer-tainty;
and today the conservative and the radical could do no better
than to recall and examine from the angle of institutional reform and
social change that decade which saw the birth of the Republic. For
the American Revolution was not merely a revolt against the mother
country resulting in independence; it also unloosed forces in America
that few foresaw at the beginning of the struggle, and these forces
State Literaky and Historical Association 15
produced changes at home as profound and lasting as did the entry of
a new member into the family of nations. And nowhere were those
changes more apparent than in the Southern States. It was by virtue
of the leadership taken in the reform of social and institutional life
that the South was enabled to assert its great influence in shaping the
affairs of the nation during the generation after the war; for states-manship
is never bred in a static atmosphere; for it the spirit of
dynamic change is essential; and nowhere in America was that spirit
stronger in the later eighteenth century than in the South.
I take therefore as the theme of my address the spirit of the Ameri-can
Revolution and its reaction on the institutional and social struc-ture
of the South, the conflict between conservatism and radicalism
during that epoch-making period in this our home region. To that
end, let us first consider the background which precipitated the issues.
From the early days down to 1776 certain fundamental influences
shaped Southern society. First of these was that of family. In no
other region of English America did kinship, locality, and descent have
quite the importance that prevailed south of the Potomac. For this
there were various reasons. One was economic. In the pioneer days
land was granted by headrights. Once the land was surveyed and
entered, wife and children were also of value in clearing the forest,
cultivating the soil, and in administering the property. Social de-mands
also made the family of distinct value. There were few amuse-ments,
and the distance from settlement to settlement was great. There-fore
if relaxation or a change from immediate surroundings was de-sired,
family and kindred were the only opportunity. Blood rela-tionship
meant companionship, sympathy, and that relaxation which
later ages have found in golf clubs and pleasure resorts.
To the same end worked a tradition brought from the old world. IN^o
worthier ambition occurred to an Englishman than to found a family
which would preserve its identity from generation to generation. In
the South encouragement in that purpose existed in the land law. Gen-erally
the property of persons dying intestate passed to the oldest son,
and this custom of the law stimulated testators to give preference to
one heir over others. Moreover, it was possible through entails to
insure inheritance in one line of descent. So the unity of family prop-erty
was established, and on the basis of that unity there developed
an aristocracy of land and family. Thus economic conditions, the need
for companionship, tradition and the law gave to the family a peculiar
position; indeed in the South the family had something of the sanctity
enjoyed by the church in New England. It was in the home, not the
church, that the great epochs of human life were usually celebrated;
16 Twenty-second Annual Session
there occurred the christenings and marriages, there in garden or
neighboring field was the burial ground, and often the only churches
of the community were the private chapels of the great landowners.
The family was the inner shrine of southern life.
Second only to the family in importance was the system of local
government. Indeed the two were intimately connected. In England
a part of the family ideal was for one or more members to take an
active part in public affairs. This tradition followed the colonists to
the new world, and in the South the opportunity was at hand in the
county court, the prevailing unit of local government. Though vary-ing
as to detail from colony to colony, the county court everywhere had
this in common : its members, the justices of the peace, were appointed,
not elected. The other officers of the county were also appointed, either
by the court or by the Governor. The powers of these justices were
not merely judicial; they were also governmental and administrative.
To be a county justice was a position of no mean importance, and it is
no wonder that well-established families centered their attention first
of all on membership in the county court. Generation after generation
members of the same family were to be found on the local bench. The
office was a stepping-stone to other positions; to the Legislature, the
governor's council, and the office of sheriff. Thus there developed a
ruling class whose members were bound to each other by ties of public
service. Its support was indispensable to any one desiring to enter
public life.
Like England, also, was the law. Each colony inherited the common
law and the statutes enacted by Parliament before its foundation. Local
conditions made possible many modifications of this principle. In IsTew
England, especially, there were many variations, but in the South there
was a larger fidelity to English heritage. The law of inheritance and
wills, equity and the land law, procedure and the division of the courts
into courts of law and courts of equity—^these matters illustrate the
fidelity to British jurisprudence. How strong was the example of con-temporary
England is well illustrated by the application of benefit of
clergy. This custom of the law, by which severe penalties for crime
were ameliorated, was adopted in Virginia. In 1732, in language
almost identical with that of the statute of 5 Anne 6, the Virginia
Legislature declared
:
If any person be convicted of felony, for which he ought to have the benefit
of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be
required to read, but, without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and
reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict.
State Literary and Historical Association 17
Thus branding and corporal punishment became a substitute for
hanging by the neck until dead in offenses that were clergiable. This
adaptation of English practice was not confined to Virginia; it was
found also in the Carolinas and Georgia, and was not abolished until
long after the Revolution.
An important element in the colonial life of the South was religion.
The warm climate, the close contact of the people with the forces of
nature, and the comparative loneliness due to sparse settlements begot
a peculiar emotional temperament. This was a good background for
religious thought and feeling; for solitude leads to introspection, nature
suggests an unseen presence, and warmth of climate creates a suscepti-bility
to emotional appeal. Unfortunately the history of religion was
characterized by a contest between privilege and equality. In Vir-ginia,
the Carolinas, and Georgia, the Church of England was estab-lished
and the law of the time discriminated in its favor. The
persecution of Puritans and the exclusion of Quakers in Virginia
during the seventeenth century, and the question of the extension
of the Toleration Act to Dissenters in the eighteenth century, are
familiar themes in the colony's history. More than this, the law of
Virginia declared that any one brought up in the Christian faith who
denied the being of God or the Trinity, that the Christian religion is
true, or that the scriptures are of divine authority should lose his
capacity to hold office on first conviction, on a second his right to sue,
receive gifts and legacies, or to serve as guardian or executor, and he
was also to suffer three years' imprisonment. In l^orth Carolina the
clergymen not of the established Church were subject to militia and
road service, and in South Carolina the parish organization was made
a unit of civil government whereby the low country controlled the alien
settlements of the frontier. In spite of these discriminations the Dis-senters
increased in numbers until they were in the majority and the
contest between England and the colonies which ushered in the Revolu-tion
was paralleled by a controversy no less notable between the Angli-cans
and Dissenters for toleration and equality before the law.
Education and intellectual life also bore the stamp of old world tra-ditions.
The English ideal that education is the function of the family
and the individual except in the case of indigent children prevailed.
Hence it was that the only provision for public education in colonial
law was exactly that which also existed in England, the training of
indigent children and orphans through apprenticeship. Suggestive of
England also was the foundation of privately supported or endowed
free schools to which poor children were usually admitted free. A
18 Twenty-second Annual Session
number of these free schools were to be found in Virginia and South
Carolina, and in the latter colony such schools were supported by clubs
or societies. The nature of the curriculum in these institutions is
unknown, but an advertisement for a master to teach a free school in
Princess Anne County in 1784 required of the candidate ability to
teach the Latin and Greek languages and surveying. It is not diffi-cult
to see in these schools an effort to duplicate in America the work
of the endowed grammar schools in England. A few academies identi-fied
with the Church of England existed. There were also academies
established by the Presbyterian clergy of the Carolinas in the genera-tion
preceding the Revolution; but their growth and expansion was
limited by the policy of the British Government which would not
permit them to be chartered. Indeed, toward the support of schools
by public money the British Government was strongly averse; money
emitted for that purpose by the I^orth Carolina Assembly in 1754 and
spent for the colonial cause in the French and Indian War was not
refunded.
Yet there was a high type of intellectual life among the large planters.
In South Carolina the dominant interest was science and medicine. In
Virginia it was law and philosophy, and politics. Robert Carter read
philosophy with his wife; Jefferson also dabbled in the subject; the
opinions of the Virginia jurists show a wide knowledge of the English
common law; and surely no profounder student of politics lived than
Madison. "In spite of the Virginian's love for dissipation," wrote Lian-court,
"the taste for reading is commoner there, among men of the first
class than in any other part of America." However, intellectual life
did not find expression in the production of books, rather it found an
outlet through the spoken word. Politics and litigation were something
more than a personal stake; they were a game to be played for the
game's sake, methods of intellectual discipline. There was thus injected
into public affairs a sort of splendid disinterestedness. It was this
phase of southern character that William Ellery Channing had in mind
when he wrote from Richmond in 1799
:
I blush for my own people when I compare the selfish prudence of a Yan-kee
with the genuine confidence of a Virginian. . . . There is one single
trait that attaches me to the people I live with more than all the virtues of
New England : they love money less than we do ; they are more disinterested
;
their patriotism is not tied to their pursestrings.
Social conditions were characterized by privilege based not on blood,
but on wealth. I^^owhere in America were there greater inequalities,
and of these inequalities Virginia was most notable. Wrote Isaac Weld
:
State Literary and Historical Association 19
Instead of the land being equally divided, numerous estates are held by a
few individuals, who derive large incomes from them, whilst the generality of
the people are in a state of mediocrity. Most of the men, also, who possess
these large estates, having secured a liberal education, which the others have
not, the distinction between them is still more observable. (Travels, I, 146.)
These words aptly describe the larger planter class—a class so numer-ous
in South Carolina, less extensive in ISTorth Carolina, and barely
existent in Georgia. But there was also a large middle class, small
planters and farmers, professional men, mechanics and yoemen. They
composed at least half of the population in Virginia and more than half
in ISTorth Carolina. Many of them accumulated property or attained
intellectual distinction, and thereby rose into the ranks of the aris-tocracy.
One can almost identify this class by the descriptions of their
houses, as when a traveler mentions houses built of wood, with wooden
chimneys coated with clay, whose owners "being in general ignorant of
the comfort of reading and writing, they want nothing in their whole
house but a bed, dining-room, and a drawing-room for company."
Finally there were the poor whites—rude, shiftless, and unambitious.
"It is in this country that I saw poor persons for the first time after
I passed the sea," wrote Chastellux, "the presence of wretched, miser-able
huts inhabited by whites whose wan looks and ragged garments
indicated the direst poverty." However, the proportion of this class to
the total population was less "than in any other country of the uni-verse."
]^ot poverty per se, but the contrast between poverty and
riches impressed the observer. Between Richmond and Fredericksburg
one might meet a "family party traveling along in as elegant a coach
as is usually met with in the neighborhood of London, and attended
by several gayly dressed footmen." He might also meet a "ragged
black boy or girl driving a lean cow and a mule; sometimes a lean bull
or two, riding or driving as occasion suited. The carriage or wagon,
if it may be called such, appeared in as wretched a condition as the
team and its driver."
Regarding class distinctions and class feeling we have little informa-tion
from the natives themselves, especially from members of the
humbler class. Preeminent among such accounts is the testimony of
Devereux Jarrett, a Methodist minister
:
We were accustomed to look upon what were called gentle folks as beings
of a superior order. For my part, I was quite shy of them and kept off at a
humble distance. A periwig in those days was a distinguishing badge of
gentle folks, and when I saw a man riding the road, near our house, with a
wig on, it would so alarm my fears and give me such a disagreeable feeling
that I dare say I would run off as for my life. Such ideas of the difference
between gentle and simple were, I believe, universal among my rank. {Life,
p. 14.)
20 Twenty-second Annual Session
That slavery tended to intensify class distinctions is an axiom to
wliich Jefferson bore ample testimony. But to tlie serious inquirer tlie
more notable characteristic of Southern slavery in the later eighteenth
century was its unprofitableness and a widespread desire to see it abol-ished.
Weld wrote:
The number of slaves increased most rapidly, so that there is scarcely any
State but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by every
planter, as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture of the
estate is attended with great expense. (Travels, I, 147.)
In 1774 the wife of Robert Carter agreed with Philip Fithian, the
family tutor, that if all the slaves were sold on the plantation, and the
money put at interest, there would be a "greater yearly income than
what is now received from their working the lands," to say nothing of
the risk and trouble assumed by the master as to crops and negroes.
And this opinion was confirmed in greater detail by St. George Tucker
in 1804:
It would be a very high estimate should one suppose the generality of
farmers to make ten per cent per annum upon the whole value of their lands
and slaves. I incline to believe that very few exceed eight per cent, and out
of this the clothing and provisions of their slaves and horses employed in
making the crop ought to be deducted. A net profit of five per cent is proba-bly
more than remains to one in twenty for the support of himself and his
family. If he wants money to increase his stock, even the legal demands and
speculators' pay, without scruple will amount to fourfold, perhaps tenfold, his
profits. (Comnientaries on Blackstone.)
In South Carolina also there was a similar sentiment. LaRochefou-cauld-
Liancourt, writing in 1799, made a careful estimate of the eco-nomic
profits of slave labor in that State and concluded that it was $68
per head and that white labor would bring a larger return.
,
This condition was one basis of a widespread desire to see slavery
abolished. Finch wrote:
Before I visited the Southern States, I supposed that all the planters were
in favor of the system of slavery. But I did not meet with a single indi-vidual
who did not regret having this species of property, and shew a wish to
remedy it, if there was any possible mode by which it could be accomplished.
(Travels, 240.)
Said E-ussel Goodrich before the Alexandria Society for Promoting
Useful Knowledge, in 1791
:
But let our planters become farmers—it would be a memorable idea ; our
fields, touched with a magic wand, would bloom ; our slaves become freemen
;
our improvement excite universal attention.
State Litekaey and Historical Association 21
Such were the institutions and economic conditions peculiar to the
South in the eighteenth century. It was a land of many contrasts.
Political oligarchies ruled, yet there was a certain disinterested devo-tion
to the public service, and the section's greatest contribution to
national life was in the domain of political thought. Refinement and
culture of a high type existed, but along with it much ignorance and
coarseness. Love of liberty was challenged by the existence of chattel
slavery. The bounty of nature was rebuked by wasteful production.
Souls susceptible to religious appeal were steeped in material aims and
deistic philosophy. What traits of character distinguished the South-erner
from his neighbor northward? What kind of men and women
did such conditions produce? The answer is suggested by a remark
of Bernard in his Retrospects. Speaking of the Virginia planters he
says, "Like the old feudal barons, their whole life is a temptation
through absence of restraint." Life in a vast, bountiful and unde-veloped
region, life in intimate contact with the blind forces of nature,
life without the limitations of a small unit of local government, life
without adequate means of intellectual discipline or adequate religious
institutions, life with hosts of dependent servile blacks; under such
conditions character was molded with no restraint from without; men
and women developed according to the dictates of emotion and will.
Thus the Southerner was notable for his individuality, for his non-conformity
to type or pattern. This individuality, resulting from ab-sence
of restraint, in turn produced certain traits well outlined by
Thomas Jefferson when contrasting N'orthern and Southern character:
N. S.
cool fiery
sober voluptuous
laborious indolent
persevering unsteady
independent independent
jealous of their own liberties zealous for liberty, but trampling
and just to those of others. on that of others.
Upon such a region and such a people the American Revolution had
a profound reaction. Its justification was found in the compact theory
of government popularized by the Declaration of Independence. That
all men are created equal meant, in the light of the revenue controversy,
equality of economic liberties. That all governments derive their
authority from the consent of the governed meant in the relation of
colonies to the mother country, self-governing but component parts of
a British Empire. These were concepts which only radicals and obscure
J
I
22 Twenty-second Annual Session
men then grasped ; wlien they were rejected by the authorities in power
independence was the only alternative. But when the choice of inde-pendence
was made, what were the implications of that equality and
that government by consent to the citizens of the states in revolt? Spe-cifically,
what were their implications in a section with a well-established
landed aristocracy, ruled by petty judicial oligarchies, more English
than American in its system of law, without educational opportunities
for all, where the concept of liberty was challenged by chattel slavery
and religion was characterized by the privilege of one denomination?
It is worthy of note that the man who more than any other realized
the contrast between the political theory of the Revolution and the
institutions and conditions peculiar to the South was Thomas Jeffer-son.
Within three months after the Declaration was adopted he re-signed
from the Continental Congress, returned to Virginia, and be-came
a member of the Legislature with the distinct purpose of agitating
democratic reform. He says:
When I left Congress, in 1776, it was in the persuasion that our wliole code
must be revised, adapted to our republican form of government, and now that
we had no negations or councils, governors and kings to restrain us from
doing right, that it should be corrected in all its parts, with a single eye to
reason, and the good of those for whose government it was formed. {Memoir.)
In one direction the course of reform was already under way, that
of religious freedom. In June the Virginia Convention had adopted
a constitution, and in the Bill of Rights there was a declaration that
"all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according
to the dictates of conscience." This meant the abolition of religious
discrimination, that persecutions were no longer possible, and that men
of all religious persuasions could participate in government if they
met the proper secular tests. It was far in advance of ]N"orth Caro-lina's,
for there the right to hold office was denied to those who rejected
the being of Grod, the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine
authority of the Old and ISTew Testaments. In Georgia, likewise, the
constitution of 1777 declared for freedom of religion but required
all members of the Legislature to be of the Protestant religion,
and not until 1790 was the principle of religious freedom
fully triumphant in South Carolina. Thus Virginia led the
South; moreover it led the nation, for in no other of the first state
constitutions was the principle of unrestricted religious freedom enun-ciated
; only Rhode Island, which continued its colonial charter, reached
a similar plane. More than this, the Virginia declaration was the first
of the kind to be embodied in a modern constitution anywhere.
State Literary and Historical Association 23
However a question of equal importance was not settled, the relation-ship
between the State and the established church. Many of the Dis-senters
held that the Virginia declaration destroyed that relationship;
the Anglicans that it did not. Thus when the Legislature assembled
in October there were many petitions; some, mainly from Presbyterians
and Baptists, prayed for a final separation of church and state; others,
submitted by Anglicans and members of the Methodist societies, asked
for a continuation of the establishment. Of the committee to which
these were referred Jefferson was a member. His sympathies were
entirely for disestablishment, but against him were Edmund Pen-dleton,
the jurist, and Robert Carter Nicholas, patriot. For two months
there was a deadlock. Then as a compromise the English statutes
which made criminal religious opinions were declared invalid, the Dis-senters
were exempted from the payment of church taxes, and all others
were likewise exempted for one year. This was practically, but not
theoretically, disestablishment. Coercion over opinion had previously
gone, and taxes now relinquished were never reimposed.
It is somewhat difficult for us today to realize the significance of
these changes in organic law. The men who promoted them were of
English extraction, and for a thousand years there had been in the
mother country an established church, the acknowledgment in law and
institutions of national allegiance to God. For a group of provincials,
English in origin and tradition, ruthlessly and suddenly to sever the
historic relationship between religion and government marked them as
radicals. States embarking on such a policy were entering an uncharted
sea and there were grave predictions as to the future. In fact in Vir-ginia
many believed that standards of conduct were lowered and the
morals of the people corrupted by this break Avith the past. Typical
was Richard Henry Lee. He wrote:
Refiners may weave reason into as fine a fabric as tliey please, but the
experience of all times shows religion to be the guardian of morals ; and he
must be a very inattentive observer in our country who does not see that
avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obliga-tion
to contribute something to its support. (Lee, Lee, II, 5.)
l^aturally the traditionalists gathered strength and in 1784 they sub-mitted
to the Legislature two measures, one to incorporate such religious
societies as would apply for incorporation, the other that the people
ought to pay "a moderate tax or contribution annually for the support
of the Christian religion." Both these resolutions were adopted and the
Episcopal Church, applying for incorporation, was promptly chartered.
However the second resolution, calling for taxation, required a statute;
24 Twenty-second Annual Session
through the influence of Madison the bill was deferred until the next
session in order to sound the sentiment of the people. There followed
a notable campaign, and when the Legislature next met it was evident
that Virginians had spoken against any renewal of church taxes. Taking
advantage of the situation, a bill for religious freedom written by Jeffer-son
was introduced and was adopted. It established nothing new; but
it did state in form of statute the ideal of complete religious liberty;
while toleration widely existed no State hitherto had enacted that prin-ciple
into statute law. This distinction again belongs to Virginia. The
incorporation of the Episcopal Church was repealed, and this was fol-lowed
by the policy of confiscating its property, a process not completed
until 1802.
In one other Southern state the religious problem proved serious.
That was South Carolina. There disestablishment was a political issue
bound up with the reform of representation. The constitution of 1777
made a compromise. The privilege of the Anglican Church was re-moved
by admitting other churches to incorporation, but the ideal of a
relationship between religion and government was preserved, for it
declared that the Christian Protestant religion should be the religion of
the State and every member of the House of Representatives should be
of that faith. This was not in harmony with the democratic spirit of
the time and in 1790 the religious qualification was abolished and the
free exercise of religion was guaranteed.
What was the significance of this controversy over religious liberty
and disestablishment ? It was something more than a contest for private
judgment; it Avas a part of the democratic movement of the time, in-spired
by the doctrine of the equality of man and the consent of the
governed. It was also a phase of the contest for power between the
tidewater and the piedmont regions. The results of the movement were
vastly important. It reacted on the general state of culture. In 'New
England intellectual life tended toward the spiritual; it was dominated
by theology; in the South it was materialistic, leaning toward law,
philosophy, and deism. I!^ow the triumph of religious liberty and dis-establishment
at first strengthened the forces of materialism and deism,
and the cause of religion, whether ritualistic or evangelical, was re-tarded.
Said Isaac Weld
:
Throughout the lower part of Virginia—that is, between the mountains and
the sea—the people have scarcely any sense of religion, and in the country
the churches are falling into decay. As I rode along, I scarcely observed one
that was not in a ruinous condition, with the windows broken, doors dropping
off the hinges, and lying open to the pigs and cattle wandering about the
weeds.
State Litebaky and Historical Association 25
^N'o greater revolution occurred in the life of the Southern people than
that in the early years of the nineteenth century when, through a series
of revivals, the mind of the masses was swung from the popular skepti-cism
of the day to the fervid acceptance of the orthodox teachings of the
evangelical churches.
Finally the religious controversy had an influence on political his-tory.
Jefferson espoused the cause of the religious liberty. He was
widely denounced for this policy and his record was cited against him
in the presidential campaigns of 1796 and 1800. Madison's share in
the movement was also capitalized by his opponents. But both men
had won the admiration and loyalty of thousands of Dissenters, who
were for the most part small farmers and men of small means. It was
therefore easy to organize them into opposition to an economic policy
hostile to their interests, the policy best represented by the Hamiltonian
financial measures. Indeed as a tribute to Jefferson a new church or-ganized
in 1792 was named for his party, the Republican Methodist
Church.
The problem of religion was by no means the only reaction of the
political philosophy of the Revolution on Southern society. Besides
an established church there existed an aristocracy of wealth and politi-cal
power. How far could it be justified during a war waged in
behalf of equality of economic liberties and government by consent?
Again the principal stage of the controversy was Virginia. There the
basis of the aristocracy was the land law. Towards entails the policy
of the colony was more conservative than England, for while entails
might be docked by judicial proceeding in the mother country, in the
colony an act of the legislature was essential unless the property was less
than £200 in value. Primogeniture was strictly enforced and inheritance
always descended. Because of entails and primogeniture there arose in
tidewater Virginia "a distinct set of families" who formed a kind of
patrician order, distinguished by the splendor and luxury of their
establishments. From this order the King habitually selected his Coun-cillors
of State, the hope of which distinction devoted the whole corps to
the interests and will of the Crown. Indeed society tended to stratifica-tion.
At the apex were the great landowners, protected by the laws of
inheritance. Below them were the half breeds, younger sons who
inherited the pride but not the wealth of their parents; next the pre-tenders,
men who had acquired wealth and property by their own
efforts and were anxious to rise into the aristocratic class. Finally were
the yeomen or great mass of small farmers, caring little for social dis-tinction,
on whom depended the real progress of Virginia.
26 Twenty-second Annual Session
More distinctly than in the question of religion the leadership in land
reform was assumed hj Jefferson. In October 1776, while the dis-cussion
of the church question was under way, he introduced a bill "to
enable tenants in taille to convey land in fee simple." After strenuous
opposition it was adopted. At one stroke the privileged position of en-tailed
property was overthrown, for, said the law, all that "hath or
hereafter may have" an estate in fee taille should stand in possession
of the same "in full and absolute fee simple." That so radical a measure
should have been so readily adopted is remarkable ; it is ample evidence
that the Revolution was more than a revolt against England. Jefferson's
aim in changing the land law was to "make an opening for the aris-tocracy
of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for and
scattered with equal hand through all its conditions."
But the abolition of entails Avas only the beginning of legal reform;
there remained primogeniture, the criminal law, and the whole British
heritage. These matters were referred to a committee of five. It made
a report in 1779 ; only a few of its recommendations were then adopted,
but in 1784 through the influence of Madison the report was published,
and the second bulwark of landed aristocracy, primogeniture, was
abolished. In its place was adopted a statute of descents. The eighteen
clauses of this law are unsurpassed in all America as a species of revolt
against British heritage. The rule of inheritance of the common law
required the property of one dying intestate always to descend, never to
ascend. A father could not inherit from a son, nor a grandfather from
a grandson. Also the male issue was always preferred before the female
;
if there were no male heir the female heirs inherited equally. On the
failure of lineal descendants the only collateral relations who could
inherit were those "of the blood of the first purchaser" ; that is, a kins-man,
say a cousin of ten or twenty removes, would be preferred to a
half brother. J^ow this whole structure of inheritance which had been
built up in England and had been transplanted to Virginia, Avas swept
away and intestate estates were directed to pass in equal shares to the
children and their descendants; if there were none, to the father; if
there was no father living, then to the mother, brothers, sisters, and
their descendants; and if these were failing, the estate should be
divided into two parts, one to go to the maternal kindred and the other
to the paternal kindred.
This law removed the last privilege of the landed aristocracy. Its
author was Jefferson. In the committee on revision Pendleton opposed
it and wished to preserve the tradition of primogeniture by adopting
the Hebrew principle of giving "a double portion to the elder son."
Says Jefferson
:
State Literary and Historical Association 27
I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double the
work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion ; but
being on a par in his power and wants with his brothers and sisters, he
should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the
decision of the other members.
Virginia was not alone in the reform of tlie land law. In South
Carolina entails had been abolished in 1732 and in 1790 the rule of
primogeniture was likewise set aside. Georgia in the constitution of
1777 prohibited primogeniture and required an equal division of prop-erty
among the heirs. IN'ot until 1784 was the reform accomplished in
JNTorth Carolina, but the change was not so drastic as elsewhere, for male
heirs were given preference over females; subsequent laws of 1795 and
1808 placed the matter on a practical parity with Virginia law.
That the course of land legislation influenced southern society pro-foundly
was the conviction of native observers and foreign travellers.
Not merely were existing entails destroyed, not merely was primogeni-ture
abolished, but custom supported the principle. "The cases are rare,
very rare," says Tucker, "in which a parent makes by his will a much
more unequal division of property among his children than the law
itself would make." Thus came a fairer distribution of wealth.
There is no longer a class of persons possessed of large inherited estates,
who, in a luxurious and ostentatious style of living, greatly exceed the rest of
the community ; a much larger number of those who are wealthy have ac-quired
their estates by their own talents or enterprise ; and most of these
last are commonly content with reaching the average of that more moderate
standard of expense which public opinion requires, rather than the higher
scale which it tolerates. Thus there were formerly many in Virginia who
drove a coach and six, and now such an equipage is never seen. There were
probably twice or three times as many four-horse carriages before the Revo-lution
as there are at present, but the number of two-horse carriages may be
now ten or even twenty times as great as at the former period. A few fami-lies,
too, could boast of more plate than can now be met wuth ; but the whole
quantity in the country has increased twenty if not fifty fold. {Life of Jeffer-son,
p. 93.)
A similar result is attributed to the abolition of primogeniture in
South Carolina. Murray wrote
:
The planters are generally impoverished by the division of property ; they
have lost many of their patrician notions (call them, if you will, prejudices).
The increased commerce has raised to affluence, and consequently into fashion-able
society, many merchants with whom the planters would not associate on
terms of intimacy fifty years ago ; thus, while the society of Boston, Philadel-phia,
and New York is daily becoming more aristocratic, that of the Carolina
capital is becoming more republican. (Travels, II, 188.)
28 Twenty-second Annual Session
Undoubtedly the Revolution wrought a change in the institution of
private property and thereby altered the social structure. But the
doctrine of the equality of man went further ; it questioned the existing
attitude of the law toward crime and the criminal and ushered in the
modern humanitarian spirit. To the conservative mind of the eighteenth
century severe penalties were essential ; the protection of property was a
supreme aim of government and the reform of the criminal was ignored.
To the reformer, inspired by the doctrine of equality, penalties must
be examined in the light of reason and the life and character of the
criminal deserved consideration. Again the conflict between the forces
of conservatism and reform centered in Virginia. There twenty-seven
offenses incurred the penalty of death and among non-capital punish-ments
were the lash, the stocks, slitting of ears, and branding. Again
also the pioneer in the movement for reform was Thomas Jeiferson. He
was the author of a bill proportioning crimes and punishments, the
pioneer of the modern humanitarian spirit. Says the statute
:
And whereas the reformation of offenders, though an object worthy the
attention of the laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which
exterminate instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource
against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety of their
fellow-citizens, which also weakens the State by cutting off so many, who, if
reformed, might be restored sound members to society, who, even under a
course of correction, might be rendered useful in various labors for the public,
and would be, living, an example and long-continued spectacle to deter others
from committing the like offenses. And forasmuch as the experience of all
ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sanguinary laws defeat their
own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of mankind to withhold prosecu-tions,
to smother testimony, or to listen to it with bias ; and by producing in
many instances a total dispensation and impunity under the names of pardon
and benefit of clergy ; when, if the punishment were only proportioned to the
injury, men would feel it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the
laws observed ; and the power of dispensation, so dangerous and mischievous,
which produces crimes by holding up a hope of impunity, might totally be
abolished, so that men, while contemplating to perpetrate a crime, would see
their punishment ensuing as necessity, as effects their causes, etc.
For such reasons the revisors proposed to reduce the twenty-seven
capital crimes to two, treason and murder, and one-half of the property
of those convicted should be forfeited to the next of kin of the one
killed; corporal punishment and imprisonment were to be the penalties
for most other offenses; however, for a few crimes, such as disfiguring
another, "by cutting out or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off
a nose, lip, or ear, branding, otherwise shall be maimed" the principle
of the lex talionis was to be adopted. This latter feature of the bill
did not meet the approval of Jefferson. He wrote:
State Litebaey and Historical Association 29
The Lex Talionis, although a restitution of the Common Law, to the sim-plicity
of which we have generally found it so difficult to return, will be
revolting to the humanized feelings of modern times. An eye for an eye, and
a hand for a hand, and a tooth for a tooth, will exhibit spectacles in execu-tion
whose moral effect would be questionable ; and even the memhrum pro
memhro of Bracton, or the punishment of the offending member, although
long authorized by our law, for the same offense in a slave, has, you know,
been not long since repealed in conformity with public sentiment. This needs
reconsideration.
The proposed reform met bitter opposition. Minds that could not
resist the cause of religious freedom, the separation of church and
state, and the reform of the land law, would not yield to the heresy
that penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the causes for
execution be reduced to two. And so in 1785 Jefferson's bill was re-jected.
However, the revision of the criminal law was bound up with
another issue : that of the survival of British statutes. The Convention
of 1776 had declared the statutes prior to James I binding on Virginia.
The abolition of this ordinance now became the objective of the re-formers.
It was accomplished in 1789 when the legislature repealed the
ordinance. A new^ commission was then appointed to revise the law and
at length in 1792 a code was reported and adopted in which all English
statutes were declared to have no force in Virginia. With the law
thus purged of British heritage, the humanitarian spirit had freer play
and in 1796, the same session in which the first public school law was
adopted and a plan for gradual emancipation of slavery considered, a
bill was introduced to amend the penal laws by reducing the death
penalties to two, and imposing on non-capital offenses service in a
penitentiary where the character of the criminal might be reformed. A
new champion of the cause now appeared, George Keith Taylor. In a
notable speech he assembled all the arguments of the time in favor of
humanitarianism. The existing penalties, he declared, were in violation
of natural rights, for in the state of nature each man defends himself,
but when he repels the mischief the "law commands him to pardon the
offender." Life can be taken only in case of murder. "Against all other
offenses I can either obtain effectual security at first, or effectual recom-pense
afterwards. But against the murderer I can obtain neither.
. . . JSTecessity therefore compels me to put him to death."
This law of nature becomes the fundamental law of states because,
under the social compact from which governments have their origin, no
power to impose the death penalty except for murder is granted. It is
30 Twenty-second Annual, Session
also wasteful, for society loses units of production and no recompense
is made to the person injured. Benefit of clergy as means of ameliorat-ing
the law simply makes the offender a marked man.
Every one avoids him, no one chooses to give employment to a felon ; but he
must live, and, consequently, deprived of all means of honest subsistence, is
compelled to continue his former course of iniquity.
ISTor are harsh penalties in conformity to the philosophy of law. In
a warm climate people are indolent and hate work; compulsory labor,
therefore, is a better deterrent to crime than the threat of death. Severe
laws do not improve manners; therefore adopt penalties that appeal to
the sense of shame. Put into the criminal code something of the spirit
of forgiveness and kindness of Christianity. Finally, let laws harmonize
with the needs of population and let them not needlessly diminish the
number of laborers in a land where labor is scarce.
Such were typical arguments of Taylor; they reflect as wide a read-ing
in the social and political philosophy of the time as do writings of
Jefferson or Madison. As a result the bill was not tabled but was
adopted. The capital crimes were reduced to two, benefit of clergy was
abolished, except for slaves, and the penitentiary was substituted for
other offenses that had been capital.
Closely akin to the nascent sense of humanitarianism was the new
spirit in education. As soon as the British administration collapsed,
a new ideal of the obligation of the government toward intellectual
training appeared; instead of a responsibility confined to the orphans
and the poor, came a general obligation. Thus the State constitutions
of J^^orth Carolina and Georgia clearly proclaimed the principle of
State support of schools and universities. Moreover, education should
be reformed and adapted to American needs rather than to European
heritage. Thus during the war the Virginians reorganized the con-servative
College of William and Mary into a university and there were
established a school of modern languages, a professorship of law, the
first in the United States, and one of medicine, the second in the coun-try.
Georgia in 1783 adopted a comprehensive scheme for public high
schools, one for each county, and in 1785 a plan for a State University
which would include all the institutions of education in the State, and
stimulate the cause of literature, was adopted. It was too advanced for
actual conditions and so it remained for JSTorth Carolina to make the
first practical educational achievement of the new era, the opening of
the University in 1795. There is no greater tragedy in all southern
history, with the exception of the survival of slavery, than the failure of
the revolutionary philosophy in the realm of education. The traditions
State Literaey and Historical Association 31
of the past, the aversion to taxation, and the impractical, even aris-tocratic,
character of the ideal which looked for political leadership
rather than elevation of the masses, fixed its doom. A similar fate
awaited the anti-slavery sentiment; to the doctrine of the equality of
man, human bondage was intolerable, but no practical method of
emancipation which would evade a race problem was ever formulated.
From the facts and tendencies thus outlined it is evident that the
American Revolution wrought a profound reaction on the institutions
and social structure of the South of colonial days. The results were
religious freedom, a greater equality of property rights, reform of the
criminal laws, efforts at public education and the emancipation of slaves.
'No wiser definition of history was ever made than the statement that
it is philosophy teaching by example. What then, in the broader mean-ing
of these terms, should the example of the Revolution contribute to
our knowledge of the philosophy of politics and the nature of free
society ?
First of all, no great war can occur without making some modification
or radical change in the internal life of the belligerent nations. Indeed
I believe that war is often but one manifestation of a spirit of change
or revolution working in civil as well as martial fields. At times
reaction checks or opposes this spirit of change but in the end reaction
gives way and readjustment takes place. Shakespeare grasped this
idea in Julius Caesar; he put into the mouth of Brutus just before
the battle of Phillippi the memorable words
:
There is a tide in tlie affairs of men tliat leads onward.
It is the task of the thoughtful and earnest citizen to know this tide,
to work with it, to guide and direct it, never to seek to impede it. Such
is statesmanship. The great failure of Brutus was not the loss of a
battle but his failure to realize that the foundations of the Republic
were already gone and that the irresistible tide of the age was toward
imperialism. No fine trait of personal character, no patriotic devotion
to the past can obscure this fundamental fault—that the man had not
the brains to understand forces greater than his own convictions.
In the period of the Revolution Jefferson and Madison caught the
meaning of the revolt against Great Britain and swung with the tide.
This is the basis of their statesmanship. Those who opposed them,
though estimable in personal character, have today a minor place on
the page of history.
Another reflection which must come if any comparison be drawn be-tween
the problems of the Revolution and those of today, is the futility
32 Twenty-second Annual Session
of applying to one age tlie political and social philosophy of the past.
The apostles of progressivism reject the social compact theory as a
basis for their program. They see in the natural right of the individ-ual
to life, liberty, and happiness, laissez faire individualism. In con-trast
how often do we hear conservatives say, "Give us the democracy of
Jeiferson." But viewed in the light of conditions as they existed in
the eighteenth century the Jeffersonian ideal could be attained only by
the abolition of special privilege, whether it was the privilege of church
or landowner, by a new treatment of the criminal and of the enemies
of, society, and a new sense of state control over intellectual discipline.
This in that day and time was radicalism. Apply seriously the principle
of the equality of man and the consent of the governed, even the right
to life, liberty, and happiness, to modern conditions and what will be the
fate of tax exemption and certain financial problems, the present atti-tude
of courts toward labor, and even the curriculum of our schools
and colleges? If any have doubts let them read Jefferson's remarks or,
better still, those of his friend John Taylor, on such matters as the
nature of industry, the character of government bond issues, the nature
of banking, and the best working type of democracy.
In conclusion I wish to raise this pertinent question: how much of
the past really lives today, how much of it do we really inherit? The
answer, I believe, is, of the forms very much, of the spirit very little.
Let me illustrate. The statutes of descents adopted in the period of the
Revolution still live; but the condition against which they were aimed,
an unequal distribution of wealth, again exists, and in the light of this
fact the statutes are ineffective formulse. The humanitarian sentiment
of the Revolution today has many monuments in the shape of penal
institutions; but how often is the spirit and purpose, the reformation
of the offender, submerged by the monuments? Again, religious freedom
undoubtedly has survived. But the principle on which that freedom is
based, the liberty of the human spirit and its right to opinion, is seri-ously
challenged. Words and sentiments expressed freely by Jefferson
and Lincoln, when today uttered, too often bring prosecution and im-prisonment.
The old conception of the fathers, that thought and
speech must be free, no longer exists. We live in an age of restraint,
not of absence of restraint.
'Now, since the forms rather than the spirit of the past survive, is
not he who really achieves something, whether he calls it conservatism
or not, breaking new ground, and is he not therefore potentially a
radical ?
When the Tide Began to Turn for Popular Education in
North Carolina
1890-1900
By John E. White
President Anderson College
Of course I am greatly pleased to be here as the guest of the N^orth
Carolina Literary and Historical Association, but if I should attempt
to tell you why I am so pleased it would involve me at once with an old
problem which has worried me enough already—the problem of the
sensitive psychosis of the ISTorth Carolinian living away from home. It
is difficult to explain that man satisfactorily. Some months ago I
sought out the old Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem and was there
trying to locate without immediate success the grave of John Henry
Boner. An elderly gentleman walking by observed my search and
guided me to the spot. "Are you interested in his poetry?'' he asked.
"Yes—no ; I am more interested in the man. He is the man who broke
his heart trying to interpret the sorrow and justify the conscience of a
ISTorth Carolinian forced to live somewhere else." Standing there with
this kind old gentleman, a minister of the Moravian church, I repeated
the lines which North Carolinians know and love so well.
Why is it the "Tarheel" exile reacts within himself so keenly and
yet so unsatisfactorily to his own conscience? He has all the inward-ness
of an interminable identity with l^orth Carolina; cherishes the
sense of it as a good fortune ; avows the pride of it everywhere ardently
;
and yet feels that he is somehow guilty of a dreadful inconsistency.
Have you not noticed that he is the most over-conscious J^^orth Caro-linian
in the world ? I suppose it is because he has spoiled his right to
be. He tries to make up to his conscience by protests of devotion. He
revels in the zeal of the repentant renegade. I have often heard him
at it on his visits home, fervently insisting that
"Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred,"
he is going to die sometime far, far away,
" 'Mid pleasures and palaces,"
and that if anybody should inquire about the lonely corpse, just tell
them it's
"A Tar Heel dead."
Sometimes I have fancied that the elder brothers hear this prodigal's
proposition impatiently and doubtfully, distrusting so much "Tar Heel"
virtue that has to make apologies and excuses for itself. The elder
34 Twenty-second Annual Session
brothers never do understand and never can understand. It is only the
prodigal who knows. And what he knows is this : that though he may
die condemned he never was really guilty. In his Reminiscences, Alex-ander
H. Stephens refers to a conversation with Reagan, of Texas, his
fellow prisoner at Fort Warren after Lee's surrender, about their asso-ciation
and associates in Congress before the Civil War. He recalled a
certain congressman named Felix O'Connell, and asked Reagan if he
remembered him. '^Yes, he was a very profane man and nearly always
drunk." "That is true," said Stephens, "but he was the most religious
man in Congress and about the only one who made it a point to attend
the chaplain's prayer reverently. One day after his morning devotions
in the House he took a seat beside me and said, ^Mr. Stephens, you are a
Christian, aren't you? I have something to say to you, something that
gnaws at my heart. My wife is a beautiful Christian, a saint on earth,
and when she dies she will go right straight to heaven.' Then with
broken voice he said, ^Mr. Stephens, I am afraid it will be the last I
will see of her and that when I die I will go right straight to hell. But
what I want to say to you is that if the good Lord does send me to hell
He will lose one of the best friends He ever had in this world.' "
]^ow, I might have been invited somewhere else by some other literary
and historical society, without wondering why; but sent for to come
here under such dignified auspices, it is very different. I have heard
of an Irishman who on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he
would have a drink of good old apple brandy, made no reply at first,
but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. "What are
you looking at, Mike?" inquired his friend. "Bedad, sir," said Mike, "I
thought an angel spoke to me." Somewhat so did I feel at first, Mr.
President, when I received the invitation to be your guest this evening.
The second reflection on the invitation was more sobering. I began to
question whether I was prepared to accept its scrutiny. Down in Atlanta
we had a Deacon who was reported to his fellow Deacons as inclined to
indulge over-much on occasions. A committee was appointed to visit
him. They did so in due and solemn form. "Brother Henry," said the
spokesman, "do you ever drink?" He looked at the committee, who
were his companions and personal friends, and said, "Brethren, before I
answer, may I ask you if this is an invitation or an investigation?"
Your invitation to me, I assure you, was not accepted without hesitation.
It was the suggestion of your secretary that gave me at length enough
confidence to venture. He indicated that I might deal profitably with
ISTorth Carolina events from 1890 to 1900. I had been in a position to
observe and somewhat to participate in the agitations of that period in
State Literary and Historical Association 35
this State with reference to education. There were incidents and in-fluences
of historical fact and value in those times, of which no fair
record had heen made. Could I not, after the chastening of twenty years'
absence from the State, set them in dispassionate order with emphasis
only upon their bearing on the greater matters which followed after?
So I am here to speak to you on "When the Tide Began to Turn for
Popular Education in l^orth Carolina.''
I have referred to the disadvantages of the exile. There are some
compensations. Distance does lend enchantment, and detachment does
minister to judgment. I can, for instance, report on the impression
I^orth Carolina is now making for herself in the South and in the
nation with more appreciation than if I were a part of it. You who
are doing the work are conscious of disappointments and dissatisfactions
with the State's achievements which do not trouble me. What is it that
people in every section of this country are saying about ISTorth Carolina ?
They are saying to one another in critical comparisons, that J^orth
Carolina is the premier commonwealth of the South in progressive
movements and that she is measuring pace with any State in the
Union. Her achievements within twenty years have struck across the
imagination of the whole country as remarkable and almost revolu-tionary.
She has moved from the seventh place to the twenty-seventh
in the value of manufactured products. She is a file leader of the
nation in contribution of Federal taxes in support of the government.
In the textile industry she contributes more to the demand markets and
in the promotion of income to the cotton farmers of the South than any
other State. She produces fifty per cent of all the lumber manufactured
in the United States. She has first rank in minerals. So the reports
run all along the line, of good roads and material improvements. But
these things are not what attract the most astonished attention abroad.
It is what the State has done in public education that makes greatest
amazement. This is the achievement of fundamental relations to all
other progress.
The Astounding Contrast
The educational expert coming from elsewhere to survey the widely-reported
progress in North Carolina would observe two facts of con-clusive
import about what he finds in actual operation.
First: That the State has committed itself unreservedly to the ac-ceptance
and demonstration of the democratic theory of education.
What is it? It is the theory in repugnance of the aristocratic theory
in education. It proposes education by the State in logical construction
;
that is, big and broad foundations first, with superstructures in their
36 Twenty-second Annual Session
practical order. To be explicit, tlie common schools first, secondary
schools second, collegiate and technical institutions third, and without a
blind alley anywhere.
Second: That popular education in i^orth Carolina is really popular.
It is enthroned in the imagination and conscience of the people. Its
enterprise rests securely in the affections of the citizen heart.
ISTow what is the historical bearing of these two facts of attainment in
1922 on the situation of education in ISTorth Carolina from 1890 to
1900? Simply this—Within less than a quarter of a century, JSTorth
Carolina has shifted her whole front in popular education. It is a
complete reversal of disposition and habit for a whole people. As a
social phenomenon it is most remarkable.
In 1890, the undemocratic theory of education prevailed in the
practical attitude of J^orth Carolina educational leaders. That leader-ship
was absorbed mainly with higher education and with the emphasis
of it. It was in general their conception that education would percolate
in intelligence through trained leadership down to the people. At any
rate, in the lack of demand from the masses justifying taxation and
legislative appropriations to the common schools they found encourag-ment
for the aristocratic policy of trying to build from the top down-ward.
The historian will explain this without difficulty. It will be
remembered that Virginia had long been reckoned as the State of edu-cational
eminence in the South. Her theory was the aristocratic theory.
The University of Virginia indicated the ideal of Southern statecraft in
education. Thomas Jefferson led the way. His monument was seen and
revered in the University at Charlottesville. ISTo one took the pains to
notice that theoretically his original program of education provided
for a structure based upon an adequate system of common schools. It
was only evident that he had consumed his practical passion on the
University. The University of ISTorth Carolina followed the Virginia
model. The effect of it through the years fixed the status of the common
schools as of subordinate importance. The University at Chapel Hill,
chartered in 1789, existed in glory and wide prestige for fifty years
before there was any movement to establish a public elementary school
in ISJ'orth Carolina. The law of 1839 providing for the first elementary
public school was timorous, tentative and without great purpose to
overcome the backwardness of public opinion. From 1839 to 1860,
there appeared one man only with a passion for popular education.
Calvin H. Wiley did his heroic stint of pleading with enough discourage-ment
to break his heart. It drove him at last back to the quiet of a
Presbyterian pastorate. The public school system from his day on.
State Literaky and Historical Association 37
existed and carried on meagerly under depression and with, no influential
diampionship. It was not popular with the educators, nor with the
people. Its maintenance was openly questioned in college centers. In
1880 the students at the University debated the question: "Ought the
Public School System of IsTorth Carolina to be Abolished?" Interest-ing
enough, as his biographer indicates, this debate was promoted by
Charles B. Aycock, of Wayne County, then on the eve of graduation.
In 1889, the anniversary celebration at Wake Forest College provided
a similar debate on the question : ''Resolved, That the present Public
School System in ISTorth Carolina is worthy of support.'^ When the
vote was taken by the large audience, the negative won overwhelmingly.
Again, curious enough, your speaker this evening represented the
negative and was warmly congratulated that lie had shown conclusively
that the public school system was not worthy of support. If the repre-sentatives
of the public school system were asked why something was not
done to improve and extend the system and make the common schools
more worthy of respect, they had their answer. The Supreme Court of
the State up to 1900 bad held that free schools were not "a necessary
purpose" and therefore were confined within the constitutional limita-tions
of taxes. That doctrine was laid down in Paysour vs. Commis-sioners
from. Gaston County, Judge Merriman dissenting. This meant
that for the common schools only a bone was left to pick after the
66 2-3 cents limit for State and county purposes of administration had
been reached. What was left could only be applied to common schools.
It was true, of course, that the constitution of the State carried the
mandatory clause—"a four months' public school shall be maintained in
every district." But the Supreme Court was not greatly impressed by
that and did not regard the common schools as constituting "a neces-sary
purpose." Thus the State of N^orth Carolina stood in 1890. I^o
one seemed greatly troubled by it. Secondary education by the State
was of course impossible, except in a few cities. In the incorporated
towns under municipal taxation there were only eight graded schools
with high school instruction, and only two of them attempted as much
as the tenth grade. In the country districts the elementary public
schools, lately defined by the Public School Commission of North Caro-lina
as "the basic institution of democracy," averaged sixty days a year
in disreputable and despised one-room houses. Only half of the children
of school age pretended to attend them at all. The little dole of money
available in a district was the perquisite of inefficiency and often im-patiently
absorbed as an inconvenience by private schools to get the
public school out of the way.
38 Twenty-second Annual Session
When the Tide Began to Tuen
Take your stand there in 1890 and tell me wliat outlook is there for
popular education in J^orth Carolina? Is there anything on the hori-zon
of hope to justify the faint prophesy of what would actually occur
in twenty years? Apparently nothing. The tide is set stubbornly in
difficulty, indifference and prejudice. I^orth Carolina was on the eve
of a transformation with noboby expecting it. Within five years a cur-rent
will be stirred in an unexpected quarter—an agitation will sud-denly
spring up which will become positive and powerful in appeal
for the common schools. That agitation, controversial, factional, and
seemingly reactionary at outset, will challenge public interest in the
common schools and will begin to turn the thoughts of public men and
the feelings of the people fiom apathy to a fighting resolution. How-ever
men may differ in their estimate of the worthiness or the unworthi-ness
of the initial impulse of the propaganda of the Baptists and Meth-odists
of those days, there are two features of it no one will dispute.
It was impressive in volume, characterized by great earnestness, and
commanded public response. The other feature was this : The agitation
after 1895 concentered immediately in demands for adequate practical
attention to the common schools. This is the story I have come to tell
you.
In 1893 a change of administration at the University of ISTorth Caro-lina
brought to that institution an assertive and aggressive leadership.
This leadership went out after students and increased appropriations.
Expressions emanated therefrom concerning the denominational colleges
which were sharply resented. The old but suppressed antagonism be-tween
the State college and the denominational college flamed out. The
county scholarship system, increasing appropriations from the legisla-ture,
and the alleged use of the State's money in loans to individual stu-dents
created a situation of acute resentment. The first gun of the
battle was fired by Dr. Charles E. Taylor, of Wake Forest College, in a
pamphlet on "How Far Should a State Undertake to Educate?" In
calm argumentative style this widely distributed pamphlet confirmed
the State's right and duty to furnish primary education free to all, but
dis|)uted the State's function of free higher education. The response
of protest was first heard in resolutions passed by the Roanoke Union
of the Tar Biver Association in the summer of 1893. The Baptist iVsso-ciations
followed in the same line of discussion. The controversy gained
headway, and at the Baptist State Convention in Elizabeth City, Decem-ber,
1893, a resolution by Dr. J. D. Huffham was adopted which pro-vided
for a committee of five to seek concert of action by all the denomi-
State Literary and Historical Association 39
national colleges, to memorialize the legislature, and to "secure if pos-sible
such arrangements as will enable the schools founded and con-trolled
by citizens to do their work without unnecessary competition
with the State schools." In 1894 the agitation was pressed further to
the front by Dr. C. Durham, the field marshal of the Baptists. At
the associations of that year and on through the next year to the day
of his death in October, 1895, Dr. Durham concentrated all the passion
and ability of his great personality in speeches which drew and held
multitudes everywhere to sympathetic attention. The emphasis of his
campaign turned more and more from the invidious note of protest
against the University to the generous and patriotic appeal to JSTorth
Carolinians to do their duty by the children of the State. Concurrently,
in 1895, the first newspaper 'in the State to place the deplorable condi-tions
of popular education before the public was the Biblical Recorder,
then edited by Mr. J. W. Bailey. He opened up a consistent, reason-able,
and increasing propaganda, showing week after week, in detail
of facts and figures and arguments, what the low estate of the public
school system portended for IsTorth Carolina civilization. In 1896 Dr.
Durham's successor and Dr. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College joined
with the editor of the Recorder with all their might, and the definite
campaign for the common schools began to have a program with its
objective in direct action for their relief. Already the new Superin-tendent
of Education, Mr. Charles H. Mebane, elected by the Populist
upheaval, had placed himself in cooperative relations with the Baptist
and Methodist movement. The political conditions at that time favored
the consolidation of influences for the change of State policies in edu-cation.
The Populist influence woke up the Democratic masses to the
sense of their powers of self-assertion. When that movement was over
in 1898, the channels of popular sensation had been permanently
widened and deepened in JSTorth Carolina. The Baptist Associations,
and in a large degree the district Methodist Conferences, in that situa-tion
became public forums of the people, not for political discussion
but for educational arousement. They passed unanimous resolutions,
phrased in positive terms of demand, for a change of emphasis in edu-cation
and for practical proposals to extend and improve the common
schools. Three years, 1896-1898, it went on in that fashion until every
section of the State had been affected and the people lined up so far as
Baptists and Methodists could be properly organized for such a cause.
There were two points vividly urged in behalf of popular education.
First: A change of policy, which meant a change of thinking on the
part of leaders, from the aristocratic theory to the democratic theory
of the public school system. It was argued after this style : "Let us
40 Twenty-second Annual Session
stop stacking our educational fodder from the top downward and do it
according to common sense and experience, by laying the foundations
first and then build thereon." It was envisioned that the public school
system had no logical appeal for confidence until this was done, and
that when it was done every educational interest of the State would
flourish, no matter how the winds blew and the floods came, because
it would be founded upon a rock. The proposition of course required
direct appropriations from the Legislature to the common schools before
any appropriations to higher education shotild be increased. The plea
was for the established priority of the elementary schools in claims on
educational statecraft.
Second: A change of heart on the part of the people who were im-mediately
concerned. The condition of their schools was portrayed in
heavy lines. Their inefiiciency, brevity, and poverty of equipment were
held up in rags and tatters. There was little note of controversy in
these appeals—it was patriotic and pathetic. The spirit of cooperation
with any hand stretched out for the healing of the open sore of ISTorth
Carolina life was not only possible but desirable so far as the leaders
of the campaign were concerned. In 1897 Dr. Charles D. Mclver, who
was outside the breastworks of the Baptist and Methodist agitation,
and Mr. J. W. Bailey, who was distinctly a leader on the inside of it,
were associated together respectively as chairman and secretary of a
movement to promote a special-tax campaign. Alas for that, it was a
dismal disappointment. Out of 938 districts, only seven voted the
special tax. After that essay it was more evident than ever that the
tide would not turn until a positive beginning had been made in the
form of a pronounced policy of the General Assembly. In 1898 this
was the battle-cry. The General Assembly must show the people that
the State's policy was going in for the relief of the common schools
and the~ precedence of their claims in all educational legislation. The
Constitution was invoked as a challenge to the candidates for the Legis-lature
since they were to swear to support and sustain it. They were
questioned on the stump : "Will you put the common schools first in
appropriation for education? Will you favor legislation to carry out
as fast and far as possible the mandatory cause of the Constitution?"
The election occurred in August, 1898. It soon became known that the
return of the Democratic party to power would bring to Raleigh a
General Assembly constituted largely of Baptists and Methodists with-out
any significance of sectarianism, but with the great significance of
fact that the Legislature was overwhelmingly strong for putting the
common schools on a forward-moving program of legislation. The
group of men who had led the agitation caused a bill to be drawn
State Literary and Historical Association 41
appropriating out of the public treasury $100,000 for the common
schools. Mr. Charles H. Mebane's was the hand that drew that bill.
It was typewritten in copy in the office of the Mission Board of the
Baptist State Convention and placed in the hands of its champions in
the Senate and the House : Mr. Stephen Mclntyre, of Robeson, and
John B. Holman, of Iredell. It went through triumphantly, though
not without opposition, both from the inside and from the outside of
the Legislature. Historically this action marked the sharp, initial,
practical beginning of that turn in the tide for popular education which
in the next fifteen years would flood the State with enthusiasm for the
present public school system in North Carolina.
In the nature of reminiscence of the good fighting of that year, I
venture to recall that the Democratic State Executive Committee had
realized that the campaign of the Biblical Recorder and others had
won out. From that committee assurance was voluntarily proffered
that no bills carrying appropriations for higher education would be
permitted to pass the Legislature without the consent of those who were
leading the fight in the State for the primacy of the common schools.
The pledge of the Democratic leaders came to test before the joint com-mittee
on appropriations in the Legislature at its first meeting, and
the State Executive Committee made good its unasked-for pledge abso-lutely.
The appropriations desired by the University, the State Normal
College, and the A. and M. College were referred to the generosity of
Mr. Bailey and Mr. White. I am glad to tell you that they were as
generous as possible under the circumstances, and that from that inci-dent
onward a new entente of fellowship and sympathy between the
State colleges and the denominational colleges began a development
uninterrupted at this hour.
The Great Consummation
With the dawn of 1900, seven years lay behind in which the gospel
of popular education had been preached from platforms and pulpits
reaching to every community in North Carolina. Public sentiment in
the rural districts, aroused and sometimes inflamed, had been confirmed
in repeated resolutions of public assemblies. The moribund situation
had given way at the end of 1899 to the sense of something moving in
a new direction for the public schools. With the dawn of 1900 con-ditions
justified the leaders of the Democratic party in believing that
a constitutional amendment carrying the 1908 educational qualifica-tional
clause for white people could be passed. We know what hap-pened
in North Carolina in that year. North Carolina in all her his-tory
has never known anything better than what did happen. Due
42 Twenty-second Annual Session
credit certainly must be given to tlie constitutional amendment for its
coercive effect as law upon popular education. But the greatest thing
that happened was Charles B. Aycock. I^orth Carolina found her
captain, gave him his own trumpet to blow, and the children's children
standard to bear. Alas our captain ! our captain ! Among all the things
cherished and preserved by your speaker of a somewhat oratorical life,
nothing is more cherished than a copy of the Raleigh Morning Post
of January 1, 1899, which reports in eight columns an address made
in behalf of popular education before the joint session of the House
and Senate on the night of December 31, 1898, in which this prophecy
of a great Captain was pleaded
:
The president of a theological seminary was asked the other day what in
his opinion was the greatest need of foreign missions. He reflected, and re-plied,
"A great missionary." If I were asked what the indispensable necessity
of popular education in North Carolina is at this hour, I would reflect and
reply, "A great public man whose heart and brain, time, talents, energy,
everything, is devoted to the cause of the wool-hatted and barefooted army of
over 600,000 children whose only hope for instruction is in the public schools."
I remarked to a gentleman yesterday that North Carolina offered the greatest
opportunity for statesmanship in America. What I meant was that the con-dition
of public education in this State, the deplorable situation with regards
to our public schools in North Carolina afforded the greatest possible oppor-tunity
for some able man to be transformed from a politician into a states-man.
And I believe it with all my heart that the man in the next ten years
of North Carolina life who has been fashioned by nature and experience for
public leadership, and who will be beside himself a fool, a crank, a dedicated,
sanctified agitator for better public schools, whether parties nominate or
people elect to office, or not, whether he offend or whether he please the news-papers,
will create a career so persistent in its claims upon the conscience of
our people, and so write himself into the history of a vital progress, and so
entwine his life into the lives of thousands born and unborn, that sooner or
later, when truth gets a hearing, as in God's good time it always does, that in
the summing-up of achievement and the distribution of laurels, the sage of
history will write his name in letters of fadeless luster.
Too eloquent by half, but a Hebrew prophet would have been very
well satisfied with what was confirmed of its prophecy in JSTorth Caro-lina
in the career of Charles B. Aycock.
The Democratic State Convention of April, 1900, that gave him its
^'harvest of hearts" and his nomination for Governor, met in the con-sciousness
of great and deep emotions. It had its mind on the nomi-nation
of a man without particular regard for his gubernatorial quali-ties
as an administrator. It had the sense of a new day which de-manded
a champion of democracy with especial reference to education.
Before Aycock was nominated, a platform had been adopted for him
to stand on. One of its planks was this
:
State Literary and Historical Association 43
We heartily commend the action of the General Assembly of 1899 for appro-priating
$100,000 for the benefit of the public schools in the State, and pledge
ourselves to increase the school fund so as to make at least a four-months
term in each year in every school district in the State.
I have pleasure in remembering the phraseology because I stood by
the typewriter that clicked it off on the little slip of paper w^hich was
handed in to the Committee on Platform through the Hon. Mike Jus-tice,
of Rutherford. It is needless to say that Charles B. Aycock ap-proved
and in his inaugural address quoted it as the keynote pledge of
the campaign he had made for the amendment. The election of Gov-ernor
Aycock relieved the Baptist Associations and the Methodist Con-ferences
instantly of every ounce of necessity to concern themselves in
resolutions about the common schools in ISTorth Carolina. It put an
end to persistent editorials and passionate speeches on that subject.
Quite naturally to say, from the day he was elected to this hour there
has never been a flutter of agitation in that quarter. There is no
question in anybody's mind, for history has guaranteed that, as to who
did the grand deed of individual leadership which swept the tide for
popular education in JSTorth Carolina. The man's picture hangs in my
home conspicuously among my household gods—Abraham Lincoln,
Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson—and I look at his face every day.
The night before he died in Birmingham I walked up and down with
him in the shed of the old union depot in Atlanta, and we talked of
things that were and are and were to be—of the past and the future of
his career. His was a nature of all generosity. He said in kind refer-ence
to two men whose names I will not call, "Our educational move-ment
in ISTorth Carolina, beginning with the campaign for the amend-ment,
found the soil prepared for it."
We know the story of 1901 to 1922. Everybody knows it, and every-body
honors the men of it. We know that J. Y. Joyner became the
organizing genius and the practical administrator of the great change.
We know that E. C. Brooks and his colleagues have confirmed and
greatly continued the advance of the public school system. 'No one
will be allowed to forget the consuming zeal of Charles D. Mclver and
others. I have only given you a leaf of unwritten record which the
historian cannot neglect. The pioneering of effective propaganda for
the common schools in North Carolina was as I have related it. We
were the first to break with a shout that had. echoes in it into the dreary
and complacent sea of inertia and stolid prejudice. The shibboleths of
that agitation became the principles of this progress which tingles in
the hearts and dances in the eyes of I^orth Carolinians at home and
abroad in 1922.
44 Twenty-second Annual Session
It was read in the newspapers a few months ago that when Marshal
Foch, the Generalissimo of the World War, in his American tour came
to the city of Detroit he was wearied to exhaustion. The clamorous
applause of the multitude had ceased to arouse his interest. There the
mayor of the city turned to him and told him a little story of how
Hennipin had sailed into the Detroit River in 1679 and had written
these words in his diary:
Those wlio will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile plain and
pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown the way.
At these words the tears rushed to the eyes of the great soldier.
Two Wake County Editors Whose Work Has Influenced
the World
By Mrs. J. R. Chamberlain
History is an ordering and condensing of social detail so as to present
facts as truth.
Because the study of small communities and the influence going out
from them is an introduction, and indeed the best of introductions to
history in its broader sense, and because such study is thoroughly fasci-nating
by reason of its own intrinsic interest, I have chosen for my
subject the work of two editors, whose personalities and the ideas they
advocated are intimately twined into the progress of our county.
More than a century ago Joseph Gales became editor of the first
newspaper established at the capital of I^orth Carolina. It was a
Jeffersonian sheet; it represented popular aspirations, and was the
channel through which many ideas of those fermenting times were
brought home to the minds, and influenced the opinions of the citizens
of old ISTorth Carolina.
Joseph Gales came here in the last months of 1799. He was a re-markable
man for ability, for adventure, and for wide experience of
men. The fact that he was self-educated, and was at the same time
an experienced journalist, made him the more skillful in sowing ideas
among the plain people of our community; and he must surely have
furnished the kindly leisures of our great-grandfathers with much
first-hand matter to discuss. His sympathy with his chosen home, and
his thorough identification of himself with it, made him a man who
would be readily liked and often quoted.
^ot many newspapers were published then, but those few were
thoroughly read. They led public opinion. They were not so often
as today mere followers of the prevalent beliefs, and intensifiers of the
prejudices of their readers. Instead of walking but a few steps in
front of the largest, noisiest crowd, as some so-called "yellow journals"
have done, they had more originality. They were formative influences,
even as viewed through the diminishing telescope of the lapse of time.
Gales had been a poor boy, born in Yorkshire, England, apprenticed
to a printer; and he set up for himself in due time his own newspaper
in Sheflield, already a great manufacturing town. He and his paper
were identified with the best liberal Whig ideals of England, just
subsequent to the defeat of the British at Yorktown—the time when
Pitt and the statesmen with him bethought themselves of the reason-
46 Twenty-second Annual Session
ableness of those demands, which, when denied to their colonies had
brought on the successful war of the Revolution.
In the England of that time reform, scientific discovery, the growth
of manufacturing, the increase of dissent, and the rosy dawn of the
French Revolution were all mixed into a web of rapid changes. Among
the advocates of the several measures of reform. Gales, by means of
his influential paper, was the peer of any. He was assisted in his
editorship by a wife whose antecedents were more cultured than his
own, but who shared his opinions, and was a woman of the greatest
talent and spirit. She was one of the early "Blue Stockings." She
wrote novels, and although the work of her pioneer efforts at self-expression,
as well as that of all the rest of her sister authoresses, not
excepting the great Mrs. Hannah Moore herself, has gone completely
out of fashion, yet their influence on their age was great. Dr. Samuel
Johnson said of these ladies : "A woman's preaching or writing is like
a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are
surprised to find it done at all." So spoke the Great Lexicographer,
that knock-down joker.
Gales's partner in his publishing business in Sheffield was James
Montgomery, a writer of hymns, which are still to be found in our
hymn books. "Hail to the Lord's Anointed" is one, and "Hark the
Song of Jubilee!" another. In the second we can still feel the breath
of new hope for humanity such as men felt when France convened her
first "States General." The hymn might be called a sanctified "Ca
Ira."
vGales must have been aware of the first Sunday school in 1781. He
afterwards became the first Sunday school superintendent in Raleigh,
when union services for the little city were held in the old State House.
>ile was a religious man. He felt a devoted admiration for Dr. Priestley
of Birmingham. He did not on that account feel afraid to show friend-ship
to Thomas Paine, that celebrated Deistic Quaker whose opportune
book, "The Rights of Man," set American sentiment unitedly in the
direction of the Revolution, and just in the nick of time.
Although Paine was later furnished with horns and a tail by the
popular imagination, after his other work, "The Age of Reason," was
printed, in which he insisted that belief in God must go the same way
/as submission to kings; yet he was a writer of power who had great
influence in his day. Mrs. Gales said of him, when she entertained him
in her house, that she found him "a gentle, kindly soul."
Dr. Priestley, the learned Unitarian divine, who interspersed his
treatises on theology and early excursions into the "Higher Criticism,"
the first that we hear of, with books about his own scientific discoveries,
State Literary^ and Historical Association 47
was also an intimate friend of the Galeses, and both he and his friends
were caught in the same back-wash of conservative sentiment when the
French killed their king.
So terribly did this deed shock Englishmen that the partisans of the
Prench Revolution in England, of whom Edmund Burke was one, could
scarcely disown all ideas connected with it hastily enough; and because
some convinced liberals. Radicals they were then called, continued to
demand prison reform and the suppression of "Rotten Boroughs," they
were subjected to the persecution of Tory mobs. Dr. Priestley's labora-tory
apparatus was thrown into the street in Birmingham, in the same
way as the types of Joseph Gales' printing office in Sheffield. Both
were indicted for treason. Both had to flee to America.
Joseph Gales remained two years in Schleswig-Holstein, then a part
of Denmark, there awaiting his wife, and after her coming, failing
immediate departure, as they planned, because a seaworthy vessel was
not at once available.
Mrs. Gales, no clinging vine she, sold out the business successfully
before she went to Denmark, and the pair with their family reached
Philadelphia safely in 1-795.
I would like to stop and turn back here, to tell in detail how bravelyX
Mrs. Gales faced her own mob, how she was protected in her home by
the working men of Sheffield, after her husband's flight, and how, when
they had begun their voyage across the ocean, when their vessel was
taken by pirates, she talked these sea-hawks into letting their prey sail
on unharmed to America. Arriving there, how she reproved Willie
Jones for profane swearing, how she wrote the first novel ever printed \
in ISTorth Carolina—the first, and for so very long, the only one. "-^
Also it would be good hunting to describe the time when the Tory
authorities had to send for Joseph Gales, the printer, to quiet a wild
Sheffield mob, which he was able to pacify; and to tell how Gales used
his unexpected delay in Holland to learn two new languages, and the
then unusual art of shorthandJ How also he grew friendly with many
celebrated Emigres, and how Madame de Genlis wished to adopt the
baby Altona Gales, and again, how they saw General Pichegru, of the
red Revolutionary Army of Prance, go skating to the conquest of Hol-land
over the ice of the River Elbe.
After all these exciting experiences the pair must have been glad to
reach a quiet haven and a life of less uncertainty, when, in the fall
of 1799, they came to Raleigh to start the Raleigh Register.
Among the IN'orth Carolina delegation to Congress, still meeting in
Philadelphia, were Nathaniel Macon and Willie Jones. Both were
Jeffersonians. Then as now people were divided into two opinions.
48 Twenty-second Annual Session
Conservatives wlio did not fully trust tlie common man, liberals who
were willing to try him. At that time, much more than today, party
lines were strictly drawn between these two camps. Jefferson, who
was a strong enthusiast for the French ideals of liberty, equality and
fraternity, gave his name to the rising party representing these senti-ments.
]^orth Carolina had at that time more population than ISTew York
State.
President Adams and the Federalists had lately passed the "Alien
and Sedition Acts," which were most unpopular. JSTorth Carolina was
a close State politically, and the Jeffersonians saw their opportunity.
They were glad to discover in Joseph Gales, lately come to Philadel-phia,
an able man whose political opinions were distinctly Jeffersonian,
who could worthily edit the paper they wished to start in Raleigh, that
new little Capital-in-the-woods.
Gales' new paper was the old Sheffield one revived. It bore the same
name. The Register. It was decorated with the same emblem, or head-ing,
of the liberty pole and cap, and it expressed the same sympathy
for the under dog. It professed also the same passion for reform as
when it had been issued in Sheffield. Its editor was from henceforth
a part of this city. He was its mayor for term after term. He be-came
State Printer after the Jeffersonians or "Republicans" came into
power.
I
He opened a book shop when he arrived in Raleigh, and among his
first list of books for sale we find the authors Godwin, Paine, Rousseau
and Adam Smith. In one of his early editorials occur these words
:
"What is the world but one wide family on which the Common Parent
looks with the eye of equal protection." Again, "To choose a good
\cause is to select one which selfish men dislike."
His paper became a great disseminator of information on agricul-tural
subjects; it published careful accounts of the discoveries and
improvements which came so thickly in the beginning of the century
past. JMr. Gales was always a friend to every idea which meant prog-ress
or benefit to those who could not help themselves. Education,
Temperance, Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Care of the Insane, Internal
Impro^ments—in all these questions he was far ahead of his fellow
citizensj
He trained three generations of editors. His son and his son-in-law
were partners in establishing and editing the National Intelligencer,
the first Washington newspaper, which gave authoritative reports of the
debates of Congress. Another son and a son's son were successively
editors of Raleigh. His descendants are many and worthy today.
I
State Literaey and Historical Association 49
Such a man's influence is impossible to estimate, difficult to limit.
I think we can take for granted for that time, as for this, the dearth
of constructive reasoning and the lack of educational progressive leader-ship,
and may be allowed to justify high praise of a man who supplied
both to his State for many years, and indirectly to his country.
Some one has said that the axis of the earth sticks out visibly at the
place which each of us calls home. In connecting the life of Mr. Gales
with our center, we noted the beginning, how it was rooted in signifi-cant
times of his native England, while the flowering came with us.
American history has not hitherto taken enough notice of or given
enough credit to our "Americans by Choice."
The second of these chosen sowers of seed, of whom I am to speak,
had indeed his day in the great world, and a glorious one; but it was
here on our own soil, here on our own red clay hills that he had his
origin. Some day we will better value the distinction which this
gives us.
The recently published Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Hen-drick,
is an admirably planned book, with skillful selection of those
letters which best show the mind of the man. It has one fault which
slaps a Wake County, ^orth Carolina, person smartly in the face. Mr.
Hendrick always thinks of Walter Page as a world figure. He would
rather have him, as it seems, just happen, like Melchisedec, without
genealogy or local attachment. He emphasizes this. He takes pains
to tell us that Mr. Page's education was almost wholly obtained out-side
of JNTorth Carolina, and ignores the home influence on a young
man's life and thought. He stresses the fact that Mr. Page was unap-preciated,
and therefore had to leave us.
l^ow when a man's forbears have lived for three generations in a
locality, and when he himself has continuously remained there until his
later teens, he can never lose the mark of his nativitv, even if he wishes
it very earnestly. Mr. Page never wished anything like that for a
moment. People who knew him, and who knew his "folks," will main-tain
that he is no "bud variation" or "mutation." He was the "square-root
of his ancestors."
That exquisite precision of his in the use of words, whereby things
are said finally, and the nerve of a fallacy is punctured so that it can
never squirm again, is not unknown as a talent in some of his kin. As
a boy he could marshal his thoughts and tell them in plain, well-selected
words. That he was well educated was his own doing. It was the
quality of the man who went to Johns Hopkins, and to Germany, which
made the education effective.
50 Twenty-second Annual Session
When lie came to Raleigli to edit tlie Chronicle lie had become a m.ost
active principle, fit to stir up a passive society. Some people are born
with the love of the past in their hearts, and others with the question-ing
of existing institutions upon their lips. Of the latter was young
Walter Page.
Imagine such a man, in the vigor of his independent youth, turned
loose in a land of sore memories. Here at that time it was like the home
of the old, where all is kept sacred; a place where, after supreme effort
relaxed, the daily habit was to "sit in the sun and tell old tales." Being
the man he was, he felt scant sympathy with all this, as a regnant
mood. He did not truly estimate the depth of the post-war ennui. He
did not think seriously enough of the old soldier's inevitable worship
of the past.
They say that even today, in this America, there are young men who
cannot get away from the World War, who cannot march breast forward
into the new day. They turn back mentally, because they feel that their
greatest significance as individuals is already past.
Mr. Page loved N^orth Carolina. He saw her possibilities. He knew
her latent power. He inspired many of those who have brought about,
since then, the things that have counted for progress. He shot his
ideas, like arrows, into the hearts of his circle of young men friends.
The things he told us, the shrewd comments he injected under our hides
by his keen criticism, we have never forgotten. Even till this day we
are taking the time to prove that he overstated, by doing all those things
which he evidently feared we might not do.
Prophets have been noted for telling unpleasant truths from the
earliest times, and every young man who begins reformer is made to
suffer for it.
Very soon, because we could not pay him a living for his wares, he
went to fill a more conspicuous place than that of the small town editor
of a weekly newspaper. The editorship of several significant periodicals
culminated for him in the chair of the staid, long-established, oracular
Atlantic Monthly of Boston. Prom that he went to become founder of
The World's Worh, more his own pattern of a monthly.
When he left ISTorth Carolina he took her with him. As often as he
visited his old home he brought her some solution to her problems. A
man is—precisely what he does. For the great "State College" which
calls its thousand young men each year and teaches them to use the
State's resources, for the ISTorth Carolina Woman's College which util-izes
the real value of our girls' brains, so long a waste product—for the
first and for the second of these educational achievements I am not
State Literaky and Historical Association 51
going to give him all the credit. Let him portion out the praise who
can: so much to Page, so much to the Watauga Club, so much to those
other notable apostles of better education, such as Mclver and Aycock.
Whatever was done then, Page was there, in word and inspiration,
at the doing of it. But perhaps his greatest service to his own State
was his interest in the health welfare of our Southern country.
When Dr. Stiles, of the Education Bureau, gave in Raleigh his first
semi-public lecture on the discovery of the cause of the malady which
was killing so many at the South, I sat upon the front bench to hear
him, the only woman there, eyed as a strange cat in the garret by the
group of physicians, plus a few cotton mill executives, there assembled.
The great calming satisfaction, felt when the true reason for a strange
and baffling phenomenon is laid in one's hand to keep forever, was my
abundant reward when I went away.
We know all about these things now. A cotton mill village, a country
school, may be as rosy and as healthy as to its children as the best resi-dence
street. This also by the help of Walter Page. Yes, he has kept
us on our toes, to show how well we can do, ^'but and if we would." We
should thank him, we should honor him, we should never take it out in
roasting his one novel, "The Southerner," because in it he never quite
guessed the feelings of the old Confederate soldier, first defeated, and
then "excoriated" by Reconstruction doings
!
All the story of the great World War is not yet written. Page's
acting of his own part as Ambassador to Great Britain, which I admire
exceedingly, is however ready for posterity's verdict.
Some recent reviewer has called him the "Modern Franklin," inas-much
as he was the interpreter of things American to the great British
Empire, when, lacking mutual understanding, we might have gone
under together along with our common civilization.
He seems also to have had laid on him the task of expressing Eng-land's
inarticulate soul to America, to have combated successfully the
dogged determination of certain elements not to consider the inevita-bility
of our joining the Allies.
International sympathy and international friendship was better than
too much raw international candor; and here again I shall claim that
old kinship; that Wake County, JN^orth Carolina, folhsyness, alive in
her distinguished son, played a part in saving the world when it rein-forced
the greater qualities possessed by Walter Hines Page. In l!^orth
Carolina we enjoy people, we like kindly gossip, we discuss and taste
the differences of personality among our friends with loving discrimina-tion,
as some more sophisticated societies forget to do.
• • •
• • •
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52 Twenty-second Annual Session
Mr. Page filled tlie conceptions of tlie English as to true democratic
ways and easy manners. He liked their individuality, and they felt it;
he became to them a more idealistic Franklin, a truly democratic rep-resentative
of a great Democracy. He was precisely the man; they
esteemed him.
Besides all this, we read in his letters how well his heart remembered
the things his boyhood knew.
How clearly we hear this when he chooses to touch that key. How
he recalled the heart of the struggling woods where he roamed as a boy;
how he remembered the smells of growing things outdoors under our
sweltering summer sun ; how he saw in his mind's eye the glorious color
of a clay bank in the golden light of autumn, and heard the whirr of the
partridge startling out of the blackberry thicket in early winter.
JSTature he knew and loved as his boyhood had found it. The pine
trees were always ^'kind to him." How dear to him was that "Little
grove of long-leaved pines" in the country he called his own
!
Yes, I take issue with his excellent biographer ; he was a Southerner.
He was far more that person than the gentleman in question might
ever be able to guess. Because of that fact and that nurture he was a
most important link, I am tempted to say the most important link in
the final will united to victory of the Allies.
c t
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c t at
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«• • * It a •
Missions of the Moravians in North Carolina Among
Southern Indian Tribes
By Edmund Schwarze, Ph.D.
Pastor Calvai-y Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N. C.
History and fiction of which the American Indian is the subject are
invested with peculiar fascination and interest. Those who remember